THE GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET
Old World Warbler Family—Sylviidæ
Length: About 4 inches; smaller than the chickadee.
Male: Olive-green above, grayish-white underneath; crown with a bright red center, bordered on each side by bright yellow, and by a black stripe that edges the yellow; a light line over the eye; wings and tail brown; tail forked.
Female: Like male, but without the red in the center of the yellow-and-black crown.
Call-note: A weak tzee, tzee, highly pitched.
Song: William Brewster, in the Auk for 1888, describes the song as follows: [It] “begins with a succession of five or six fine, shrill, high-pitched somewhat faltering notes, and ends with a short, rapid, rather explosive warble. The opening notes are given in a rising key, but the song falls rapidly at the end. The whole may be expressed as follows: tzee, tzee, tzee, tzee, ti, ti, ter, ti-ti-ti-ti.”
Habitat: Woodlands, where kinglets are usually found near the ends of branches, of coniferous trees especially.
Range: Eastern North America. Breeds in the tree-regions of central Canada, south in the Rocky Mts. to northern Arizona, New Mexico, and to Michigan, New York, and mountains of Massachusetts, and in the higher Alleghanies south to North Carolina; winters from Iowa, Ontario, New Brunswick, to northern Florida and Mexico.
Though the Golden-crowned Kinglet is one of our smallest birds, it braves the rigors of winter in the United States. It may be seen from the latter part of September until April or early May, when it goes to its more northerly nesting ground.
Kinglets and chickadees are industrious searchers for insects’ eggs. Their value is almost inestimable. Mr. Forbush tells of watching the “Gold-crest” hunt for its food among the pines. He says: “The birds were fluttering about among the trees. Each one would hover for a moment before a tuft of pine ‘needles,’ and then either alight upon it and feed or pass on to another. I examined the ‘needles’ after the Kinglets had left them, and could find nothing on them; but when a bird was disturbed before it had finished feeding, the spray from which it had been driven was invariably found to be infested with numerous black specks, the eggs of plant lice. Evidently the birds were cleaning each spray thoroughly, as far as they went.”[31]
Mr. Forbush tells also of observing the work of seven kinglets in a grove of white pine which “must have been infested with countless thousands of these eggs, for the band of Kinglets remained there until March 25, almost three months later, apparently feeding most of the time on these eggs. When they had cleared the branches, the little birds fluttered about the trunks, hanging poised on busy wing, like Hummingbirds before a flower, meanwhile rapidly pecking the clinging eggs from the bark. In those three months they must have suppressed hosts of little tree pests, for I have never seen birds more industrious and assiduous in their attentions to the trees. One might expect such work of Creepers or of Woodpeckers; but the Kinglets seemed to have departed from their usual habits of gleaning among limbs and foliage, to take the place of the missing Creepers, not one of which was seen in the grove last winter.”[32]
THE CAROLINA WREN
Wren Family—Troglodytidæ
Length: About 5½ inches; the largest of the six more common eastern wrens.
Male and Female: Reddish-brown above; no bars or streaks, except on wings and tail, and occasionally underneath the body, near the tail; a long light line over the eye, extending to the shoulders; under parts buff with a brownish wash; throat white.
Notes: “Wren-like chucks of annoyance or interrogation,” and “a peculiar fluttering k-r-r-r-r-uck, which resembles the bleating call of a tree-toad.”[33]
Song: A loud clear whistle, consisting of three similar syllables, with variations.
Habitat: Thickets, vines, and undergrowth.
Range: Eastern United States. Breeds from southeastern Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio, southern Pennsylvania, the lower Hudson and Connecticut valleys south to central Texas, Gulf States, and northern Florida; casual north to Wisconsin, Michigan, Ontario, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine.
Professor Beal writes of this interesting wren as follows: “The Carolina wren is resident from the Gulf of Mexico north to the southern boundaries of Iowa, Illinois, and Connecticut in the breeding season, but in winter it withdraws somewhat farther south. It is a bird of the thicket and undergrowth, preferring to place its nest in holes and crannies, but when necessary, will build a bulky structure in a tangle of twigs and vines. Unlike the house wren it does not ordinarily use the structures of man for nesting sites.
“It is one of the few American birds that sing throughout the year. Most birds sing, or try to, in the mating season, but the Carolina wren may be heard pouring forth his melody of song every month. The writer’s first introduction to this bird was in the month of January when he heard gushing from a thicket a song which reminded him of June instead of midwinter.
“This wren keeps up the reputation of the family as an insect-eater, as over nine-tenths of its diet consists of insects and their allies.” Stomach analysis shows that the vegetable food of the Carolina wren is largely seeds of trees and shrubs and some wild berries. He concludes: “From this analysis of the food of the Carolina wren, it is evident that the farmer and fruit-grower have not the slightest cause for complaint against the bird. It eats neither cultivated fruit nor grain, and does not even nest in an orchard tree; but it does feed on numerous injurious insects and enlivens the tangled thickets with its cheerful songs for twelve months of the year.”[34]