Nature: Teeny-tiny golden-crowned kinglets are small, yes, but tough as nails

Nature: Teeny-tiny golden-crowned kinglets are small, yes, but tough as nails

What is the smallest songbird in Ohio? Ruby-throated hummingbird? Wrong, although it’s a trick question of sorts, as hummingbirds are not songbirds. They belong to the non-passerine birds, a large group that includes sandpipers, waterfowl, woodpeckers, hummingbirds and many other families.

The passerines, or perching birds, is the largest order of birds and includes familiar species such as cardinals, flycatchers, jays, and warblers. In all, the Passeriformes includes about 6,500 species — most of the birds currently known. And the tiniest of the lot in our region is the golden-crowned kinglet, an elfin that measures only four inches in length, sports a seven-inch wingspan and weighs but six grams. That’s barely more than a nickel. Quite a contrast to our largest regularly occurring native bird, the wild turkey. Big toms regularly eclipse 18 pounds, and the largest ever killed was a Kentucky gobbler that crushed the scales at 37.6 pounds. It would take 2,845 golden-crowned kinglets to equal the mass of that turkey.

Golden-crowned kinglets may be small but they’re tough. The core breeding range is a broad swath of boreal forest ranging from Newfoundland, Canada, to Alaska. Kinglets are heavily associated with conifers, and also breed at higher elevations of eastern and western mountain ranges. Ohio is on the southern edge of the nesting range, and there have been only a handful of breeding records, mostly in the northeast quarter of the state.

In winter, kinglets disperse south across the lower 48 states, and become common in Ohio. These sprites can be easily missed due to their size, and propensity for foraging in the heavy cover of coniferous trees. Those tuned into their frequently delivered wispy, high-pitched tsee-tsee-tsee calls will find far more kinglets.

I visited Green Lawn Cemetery on Dec. 7, camera in tow, seeking feathered quarry. The cemetery, on Columbus’s south side, covers 360 acres and is a haven for birds. My main target was a pair of merlins that have been hanging out there. The powerful little falcons mostly feed on songbirds and they’ve got plenty of prey at Green Lawn. I found both merlins, and many photos later wandered off in search of other subjects.

To my delight, I soon stumbled into a half-dozen golden-crowned kinglets foraging in a copse of ornamental cedar and spruce. An assemblage of kinglets is known as a court, and these birds were presiding in the lower boughs, luckily for me. I began firing away with my camera, but securing quality images of kinglets is no easy task. They are nearly always in motion, flicking wings and tail, and darting among the branches. I took around 400 images, and ended up with about 10 keepers.

Both males and females were present. The latter have but a golden stripe on the crown. Males, as in the accompanying photo, are adorned with flaming orange and gold stripes. When agitated or feeling assertive, a male will fluff the crown feathers into a riotous explosion of color, as if the top of its head went aflame.

While kinglets eat small amounts of seeds and fruit in winter, the overwhelming majority of their diet is small invertebrate prey. Mites, spiders, springtails, various insects, their eggs, etc. Many species in these groups are active or at least in accessible spots in winter, and kinglets are adept at finding them. A real kinglet treat is a caterpillar. Some conifer-specialist moth species’ caterpillars overwinter, plastered to twigs and blending with bark to an incredible degree. Kinglets find plenty, though.

Biologist Bernd Heinrich, in his remarkable book "Winter World," describes the mechanisms that enable kinglets to survive frosty winter nights when temperatures might plummet below zero. For starters, they maintain a body temperature of about 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Humans risk heat stroke and death once internal temperatures reach about 104 degrees. An inch-thick-layer of soft down feathers is covered by shingle-like contour feathers that trap body heat. In effect, the kinglet lives in a down-filled sleeping bag. At night, the bird stuffs it head into its feathers, shielding it from bitter cold. To further retain warmth on especially cold nights, small groups of kinglets huddle tightly together on inner branches overarched with snow-covered needles. Such arboreal snow caves further reduce heat loss by offering protection from wind.

The golden-crowned kinglet may be an impossibly tiny, feathered gem, fragile and delicate at first glance, but it’s tough as nails.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com.