Birds

Kinglets Come and Go

October 31, 2008 by Mike 6 Comments

In many temperate zones, birds of the genus Regulus are among the first to arrive in spring and the last to pass through come fall. In North America, Ruby-crowned (Regulus calendula) and Golden-crowned (Regulus satrapa) Kinglets essentially herald both spring and winter. These “petty kings” are frenetic feeders that hop manically, often in mixed flocks, from branch to branch.

Spotting fall’s last flight of kinglets often moves me to melancholy, or worse. A few years back, a Regulus rendezvous inspired me to pen a rather violent verse which was on the old blog but never made the migration to WordPress:

A kinglet is named for its crown,
Which can hardly be seen from the ground,
If the bird is above,
You can give it a shove,
And look at its dome while it’s down!

It should go without saying that accosting kinglets is very bad form, as is my poetry!


That’s not funny…

Written by Mike
Mike is a leading authority in the field of standardized test preparation, but he's also a traveler who fully expects to see every bird in the world. Besides founding 10,000 Birds in 2003, Mike has also created a number of other entertaining but now extirpated nature blog resources, particularly the Nature Blog Network and I and the Bird.