The Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Learn 5 facts about the Ruby-crowned Kinglet.
Welcome back to The Birder’s Way! I’m your host Caleb Shingleton. Before you read through the rest of this post I’d really appreciate if you would subscribe to my Substack that way you get an email when I post. Just hit the little orange button down below to subscribe :).
Let’s learn 5 facts about the Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Corthylio calendula).
1. The Ruby-crowned kinglet is a small bird overflowing with energy (photographers have a hard time getting pictures of it due to it’s overflowing amount of energy). The Ruby-crowned Kinglet forages through lower branches of trees and shrubs while moving from place to place in a fast energetic way. Often seen hoping from branch-to-branch while foraging for food.
2. They feed on primary small insects and spiders. The main insects they feed upon include: Beetles, flies, moths, ants, and even wasp. During the winter months they may feed upon some berries and seeds.
3. The conservation status for the Ruby-crowned Kinglet is currently at low concern. According to All about Birds Kinglets seem to handle human disturbance and habitat fragmentation fairly well (so that is a good thing when it comes to conservation). Even though wildfires and logging can reduce their population rate. Their wide range of wintering habitats helps them tolerate human disturbances.
4. In the summer Ruby-crowned Kinglets can be found in spruce-fir forests in the northwestern United States and across Canada. They also can be found in mixed woods, isolated trees in meadows, coniferous and deciduous forests, mountain-shrub habitat, and floodplain forests of oak, pine, spruce or aspen. So, they are pretty common birds in those habitats. Interestingly enough Ruby-crowned Kinglets can be found in woods and thickets across most of the continent.
5. They like to nest occasionally as high up as 100 feet. Female Ruby-crowned Kinglets usually choose a nest site near the tree trunk or even suspended from small twigs and branchlets. It usually takes the female 5 days to build a complete nest. They work very hard to build the perfect nest by making trips every five minutes or so to gather materials: grasses, feathers, mosses, spiderwebs and cocoon silk for the outer structure, fine plant material and fur for the inner lining. I just love all the effort they put into building the perfect nest for soon coming hatchlings. They lay 5-12 eggs in their nest and incubating them up to 14 days before they hatch.
Not sure about you, but I definitely find the Ruby-crowned Kinglet as an interesting bird. I have had a few on my property this week. They have been singing and calling every time I’m out birding.
A picture of a Ruby-crowned Kinglet:
Photo by James Tornetta on eBird .
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Written by Caleb Shingleton.
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Happy birding!