Larch Creek Birds

What the birds (and frogs) are saying at a creek in western Washington
Plate 37
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Chester A. Reed, Bird Guide, 1906
Bird

Golden-crowned Kinglet

Regulus satrapa
Kinglets (Regulidae)
Year-round resident. Expected at the creek in every month.
Field marks
A minute olive bird with a bold striped face and a crown patch of yellow (female) or yellow-and-orange (male), flicking its wings constantly as if trying to remember something.
Male & female
The male's crown shows orange in the centre; the female's is all yellow.
Voice
A very high, thin 'see-see-see' that many people over 50 can no longer hear, and a tinkling song that ends in a chatter.
Diet
Tiny insects, spiders and their eggs gleaned from conifer needles, even hovering to reach the tips.
Habitat
Dense conifer forest; a core member of the winter flocks.
Nesting
A deep, hanging cup of moss and lichen near the tip of a conifer branch; 8–9 eggs, the biggest clutch for its size of any bird, laid in two layers because they will not all fit.
Size
3–4 in long, about a fifth of an ounce: a nickel. With the hummingbirds, the smallest bird at the creek, and possibly the bravest.

Survives nights of –20 °F by huddling together in a ball of several birds, which is also a fair description of how most of us would handle it.

Season how expected it is here, week by week

50%100%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecheard at the creektoday
Fig. 1. BirdNET's range model for this location: the chance this species is present in each week of the year. Orange ticks mark weeks it has actually been heard at the creek; the dashed line is today.

At the creek 9 calls on 3 days, first Oct 29, last Oct 31

2500:00 — 0 calls001:00 — 0 calls02:00 — 0 calls03:00 — 0 calls304:00 — 0 calls05:00 — 0 calls06:00 — 0 calls607:00 — 0 calls08:00 — 0 calls09:00 — 2 calls910:00 — 0 calls11:00 — 0 calls12:00 — 1 calls1213:00 — 1 calls14:00 — 0 calls15:00 — 0 calls1516:00 — 5 calls17:00 — 0 calls18:00 — 0 calls1819:00 — 0 calls20:00 — 0 calls21:00 — 0 calls2122:00 — 0 calls23:00 — 0 callssunrisesunset
Fig. 2. When it calls: all detections by hour of day (today's sunrise and sunset shown).
25Oct 2 — 0 callsOct 3 — 0 callsOct 3Oct 4 — 0 callsOct 5 — 0 callsOct 6 — 0 callsOct 7 — 0 callsOct 8 — 0 callsOct 9 — 0 callsOct 10 — 0 callsOct 10Oct 11 — 0 callsOct 12 — 0 callsOct 13 — 0 callsOct 14 — 0 callsOct 15 — 0 callsOct 16 — 0 callsOct 17 — 0 callsOct 17Oct 18 — 0 callsOct 19 — 0 callsOct 20 — 0 callsOct 21 — 0 callsOct 22 — 0 callsOct 23 — 0 callsOct 24 — 0 callsOct 24Oct 25 — 0 callsOct 26 — 0 callsOct 27 — 0 callsOct 28 — 0 callsOct 29 — 1 callsOct 30 — 5 callsOct 31 — 3 callsOct 31
Fig. 3. Calls per day over the last 30 days.

Recordings

Clearest recording · Oct 30 4:36 pm · 93% sure
spectrogram
Recent · Oct 29 4:50 pm · 89% sure
spectrogram

From the encyclopedia

The golden-crowned kinglet is a very small songbird in the family Regulidae that lives throughout much of North America.
From Wikipedia, "Golden-crowned kinglet", CC BY-SA 4.0.