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Golden-crowned kinglets, once called fiery-crowned wrens, are tiny, tiny birds – almost as small as hummingbirds. Adults weigh about 5 grams, or one-fifth of an ounce – about as much as a stick of gum, a nickel or four raisins. The tiny female lays up to a dozen eggs (although eight or nine is more typical), each of which weighs one-50th of an ounce. When the eggs hatch, each baby is the size of a bumblebee.
As you may have inferred from their name, golden-crowned kinglets have a yellow stripe on the top of the head. In females, the stripe is all yellow. In males, there is a red strip inside the yellow. Does this bird’s yellow stripe have any importance? In fact, it does. These diminutive birds select their mate based on the color of the stripe: They prefer partners with brightly colored crowns.
Most golden-crown kinglets are migrants passing through on their way north or south to either their summer breeding grounds in Canada or their winter haunts in the south. A few hardy golden-crowned kinglets reside in Massachusetts pine forests throughout the winter. Despite their diminutive size, these birds are tough. They can survive winter nights that are 40 degrees below zero. During the breeding season, a few of these birds nest in the commonwealth in higher elevations.
According to ornithologist William Brewster, “During the four years (1865–1869) when I was at the Cambridge High School on Fayette Street my daily walks to and from the school led, beyond Harvard Square, through Harvard Street or Broadway – or, more rarely, through Main Street (now Massachusetts Avenue). Those birds seen regularly and commonly in winter” included the “Golden-crowned Kinglet.”
There’s a trick to the little birds’ hardiness, though, and it’s in their diet.
Golden-crowned kinglets are carnivores – though because they are so small, insectivore is probably a more accurate term; the prey they devour is minute, including insect eggs and insects including aphids, gnats, lice, beetles, flies, spiders, mites and scale insects. This little perpetual-motion machine needs to eat constantly because of its high metabolism and high body temperature. If it goes without food for even a few hours in winter, it can starve or freeze to death. Therefore, this hyperactive little bird is always foraging from the tops of trees to the bottom, hunting for insects and their eggs. You might spot it hanging upside down to search underneath branches or hopping from branch to branch. It also picks off insects as they fly through the air. Sometimes it is drawn to dripping sap, which attracts ants and other insects.
Ornithologist Edward Howe Forbush once described these birds:
This tiny dainty bird whose long soft plumage and remarkable vigor enable it to withstand the rigors of a New England winter when much larger birds leave us for the south, is not uncommon at that season in the dense pine woods of southern New England. . . . In migration it may be found almost anywhere where trees grow or even in bushes and thickets, in orchards or in sproutlands, but in summer or winter it prefers the cone-bearing trees.
Golden-crowned kinglets build nests up high – as much as 60 feet off the ground in the tops of pine cone-bearing trees. The kinglet pair spend about five days in mid-May building a cup-shaped nest, about 3 inches wide and 1.5 inches deep – the perfect size for their many tiny eggs. The female incubates the eggs for two weeks while the male brings her food.
In 14 days, the chicks hatch. The parents eat or remove the broken eggshells. The chicks are about the size of a bumblebee and almost naked, except for a few tufts of gray down. According to ornithologist Arthur Cleveland Bent, “At the approach of the parent birds, they raise their little, palpitating bodies and open wide their tiny, orange-red mouths for food … At first the young are fed by regurgitating partly digested food; later moths, caterpillars, and other insects furnish their diet.”
Both parents provide food for a bit, but then the female starts a second nest, leaving the male to care for the chicks in the first nest. By the time the chicks in the first nest can fly, the female is incubating eggs in the second. The male keeps feeding the newly fledged chicks and the female sitting on the second clutch of eggs. After about 17 days, the newly fledged chicks are completely independent, but dad cannot rest yet, because the second brood is hatching. Golden-crowned kinglets need to raise many chicks because about 87 percent of these birds die each year – mostly in the winter. In fact, a very hard winter can kill the entire population.
Bent wrote in the early 1900s about how tame these little birds appear (hygiene practices seem to have changed greatly since that time):
One morning we found our boat invaded by eight or ten of these birds. It was not long before they found their way into the cabin, attracted there by the large number of flies, and at dinner time they caused no little amusement and some annoyance by perching on the heads of passengers and on the various dishes which covered the table. I caught flies, which they would readily take from my hand with a quick flutter.
Spring is the time of year you might see golden-crown migrants passing through. I know small flocks have been seen in Cambridge and Somerville recently. Keep your eyes peeled for these active little birds.
Have you taken photos of our urban wild things? Send your images to Cambridge Day, and we may use them as part of a future feature. Include the photographer’s name and the general location where the photo was taken.
Jeanine Farley is an educational writer who has lived in the Boston area for more than 30 years. She enjoys taking photos of our urban wild things.
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