Golden-crowned Kinglet

Regulus satrapaOrder: PASSERIFORMES Family: Kinglets (Regulidae)

Codes: Common Name: GCKI Scientific Name: REGSAT ITIS Taxonomic No.: 179865

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Overview

Golden-crowned Kinglet: Very small, warbler-like bird, olive-green to gray upperparts and pale breast. Head has bright orange crown patch bordered with yellow and black, white eyebrows and black bill. Tail is short and wings have two bars. Weak fluttering flight on shallow wing beats.

Range and Habitat

Golden-crowned Kinglet: Common from southern Alaska to central Canada and southeast to the Carolinas; spends winters south to Florida and the Gulf coast. Preferred habitats include dense conifer forests; also found in deciduous and mixed forests.

Topo Map: Perching-like Body

Listen to Call

Voice Text

"tsee-tsee-tsee"

Interesting Facts

Each of the Golden-crowned Kinglet's nostrils are covered by a single, tiny feather.

Formerly breeding almost exclusively in the remote, boreal spruce-fir forests of North America, it has been expanding its breeding range southward into spruce plantings in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.

They usually raises two large broods of young, despite the short nesting season of the northern boreal forest.

A group of kinglets has many collective nouns, including a "castle", "court", "princedom", and "dynasty" of kinglets.

Bird Term Glossary

Author

Gary Owen Dick

Related Birds

Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Hutton's Vireo
Blackburnian Warbler
Bell's Vireo
Cassin's Vireo

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Bird Call Credits: The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Martyn Stewart, http://www.naturesound.org, Redmond, Washington USA. The reuse or copying of bird calls in this database is strictly forbidden.

Golden-crowned Kinglet

● Song: "tsee-tsee-tsee"

● Foraging & Feeding: Golden-crowned Kinglet: Eats mainly insects, insect eggs, and seeds; drinks tree sap, sometimes from sapsucker drill wells; forages while moving among branches and leaves, often flicking its wings to flush prey.

● Breeding & nesting: Golden-crowned Kinglet: Five to eleven creamy white eggs, splotched brown or gray, are laid in a nest made of lichens and moss, lined with bark chips, rootlets and feathers, and built on a conifer branch from 30 to 60 feet above the ground. Incubation ranges from 14 to 15 days and is carried out by the female.

● Similar species: Golden-crowned Kinglet: Ruby-crowned Kinglet lacks white eyebrows and black eye-line.

Flight Pattern

Weak fluttering flight, alternating rapid shallow wing strokes with a brief pull of wings to sides. Hovers over food before dipping down to pick it up with beak.

Golden-crowned Kinglet Breeding Male Body Illustration

● Range & Habitat: Golden-crowned Kinglet: Common from southern Alaska to central Canada and southeast to the Carolinas; spends winters south to Florida and the Gulf coast. Preferred habitats include dense conifer forests; also found in deciduous and mixed forests.

^BreedingMonogamous, Solitary nester

^Population

^MigrationMigratory

^Weight0.2 Ounces

Perching-like Body

Upperparts

Back, rump, hindneck, wings, and crown.

Breast

The upper front part of a bird.

Crown

The crown is the top part of the birds head.

4 and 6 letter alpha codes

The four letter common name alpha code is is derived from the first two letters of the common first name and the first two letters of common last name. The six letter species name alpha code is derived from the first three letters of the scientific name (genus) and the first three letters of the scientific name (species). See (1) below for the rules used to create the codes..

Four-letter (for English common names) and six-letter (for scientific names) species alpha codes were developed by Pyle and DeSante (2003, North American Bird-Bander 28:64-79) to reflect A.O.U. taxonomy and nomenclature (A.O.U. 1998) as modified by Supplements 42 (Auk 117:847-858, 2000) and 43 (Auk 119:897-906, 2002). The list has been updated by Pyle and DeSante to reflect changes reported by the A.O.U from 2003 through 2006.

Field Guide to Birds of North America