The Tiniest Kings - Ruby-Crowned and Gold-Crowned Kinglets

Ruby-Crowned Kinglet, Regulus calendula Phippsburg Maine October 21, 2011

The red smudge on the crown of this bird's head raises up to a nice, ruby crest when it's trying to attract chicks during breeding season. It does not fully display its crest often. It's not as flashy as its cousin that sports a golden crown no matter what it's up to. Maybe because it's smaller, the Golden-crowned feels the need be ostentatious.

Gold-crowned Kinglet Regulus satrapa Phippsburg, Maine October 24, 2011

(this bird was a window strike. It lived to rule the forest another day)

     This tiny bird is sitting on the end of my index finger. I have small hands and often wear children's gloves when I garden. It's hard to find gloves that fit so that the finger tip doesn't fold over. That should give you an idea of just how diminutive this bird is. Next to Ruby-throated hummingbirds, these are our smallest birds The Golden-crowned Kinglet in the bottom two images is about four inches from bill tip to tail tip. The Ruby-crowned is a smidge longer at four and a quarter inches. Given how small they are, it must be hard for them to find crowns that fit.
     I feel their pain. Not only are my fingers short, so are my legs. I'm wearing a "petite" bathrobe that is slightly too long. When the Golden-crowned Kinglet hit the window, I leaped to its rescue and almost fell on the floor, hobbled by the hem of the robe. My inseam is only twenty seven inches. To buy pants that don't drag on the ground, I have to shop in obscure places. I can't walk in to a store and buy off the rack and expect a positive outcome. Even when a garment says "short" or "petite" on the label, I can't assume that means short enough for me. Lately, I've been buying pants at Denim & Company, an online  QVC store. Because I have found this source for pants that fit perfectly, I have anxieties that suddenly, the next time I need a new pair, Denim & Company will have vanished. It is a universal rule that when you find a product that you love and become dependent upon, it will  cease to be available. I appreciate many of the challenges these precious birds face out there in the wild. I wonder if the Kinglets have problems while crown shopping. Is there a crown outlet somewhere amidst the vast malls of New Jersey ? If a Kinglet wears a crown that is too big, thus slipping on its head, it could be fatal. My crown has slipped a few times nearly killing me. I get it.

   There are six species of kinglets on the planet. We have two in North America, the ones you see here. The scientific name Regulidae comes from the Latin word regulus for "petty king" or prince. That comes from the colored crowns of adult birds. Loosely, these little guys fall into the class of Old World Warblers along with Thrushes and some of their buddies, the Tits and Dippers, which doesn't sound very classy at all if you ask me! They sound like performers at a strip club.
     Kinglets have an elongated fourth, hind toe for suspending from branches. However, this still doesn't make them good at pole dancing. They perform in the tree tops preferring mixed woods. The Golden-crowned especially likes the tops of conifers, though I often see them in birches and alders. Both kinglets are insect eaters. They will also eat the eggs of insects and the pulp of berries. Their rapid metabolism and small size mandate that they eat constantly, even while nest building. Kinglets that can't eat can lose a third of their body weight in twenty minutes and may starve to death in an hour.They flit and twiddle around at the ends of branches, hovering as they glean bugs from the leaves. Ruby-crowned kinglets are recognizable by their constant wing flicking. Keeping the crown firmly on the head is an imperative during this kind of acrobatic food hunting. They are fast moving, energetic birds that are hard to photograph. They don't sit still for studio work very well, unless stunned like the Golden-crowned shown here.
     Kinglets aren't endangered, though some studies suggest population declines due to habitat loss in some areas. Many of them, though not truly migratory,  move further south from their breeding areas in the winter months. But, many of them stay here. They eat insects in the tree tops all winter and especially fancy the caterpillars of moths and snow fleas. Rumor has it that during the winter, they wash the bugs in their mugs down with single malt Scotch. For me to stay in the top of a spruce tree for the winter, it would take Glenfiddich. And, you could keep the crown.

Thanks in part to:
http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Wilson/v107n03/p0558-p0561.pdf

Sibley, David A, The Sibley Guide to Birds, 2000, Pg 394

Cornell Lab of Ornithology http://allaboutbirds.org
http://wikipedia.com

And, Dr. Herb Wilson, Judy Scher, Robeta Lane, AnnieO, Kristen Lindquist, Julia, Sean Smith, Sharon F. and Joel Wilcox for information and resources.

This post just recieved Editor's Pick on Open Salon (http://salon.com). It is my twelfth Editor's Pick.

Duck Hunting Gone Wrong - The Meaning Of Life

New Meadows River at sunset

     A few days ago, I had a mammogram which prompted maudlin, pouty feelings about getting older. The list of things one must seemingly do to keep the old carcass going feels endless. No sooner have I completed the "crush-o-gram," as I call it, than I must present for a bone density scan. I could say no to this and just wait until I fall down, then crumble to the ground, a pile of dust and broken bones. But, Sally Field, whom I'll always remember as The Flying Nun, says I must, so submit I will. After all, who would argue with The Flying Nun? I've also had to make an appointment with a dermatologist for assorted "skin things," though they can't see me until June of next year. My face may fall off in the mean time, but I'll just have to get in line with the rest of the apparently flourishing dermatology market. There are a lot of us out there. Thankfully, I'm not due for a colonoscopy until next year. Like the Christmas shopping days count down pounded into us every day lately, I'll be counting down for next year. Soon, you'll hear me on the TV and the radio,  "Three hundred and sixteen days until my colonoscopy!" "Only two months until my colonoscopy!" "It's not too late all you Midnight shoppers! Tomorrow is my colonoscopy!" You'll think to yourself, maybe even say out loud, "Shut up already!" And so I should, because I'm lucky to be alive. I'm lucky that I don't yet have any of the maladies these tests are intended to detect. I'm just advanced enough in age to have learned to fear that I might. So a-testing I will go.
     Besides fear of disease, age has also taught me a few other things. Most importantly, I've learned that I really don't know much of anything at all. The more I learn about things, the less I seem to know in general about the big stuff, like the meaning of life. I've also learned that I no longer have to explain nor rationalize my values. I gave that up in my forties. Now, I simply embrace when I feel something is good or wrong; that's all that is required. I need not debate the logic with anyone and especially not with myself. I've also learned that the life 'firsts' are getting further and further apart, so I'd better pay attention.
    On my way home from my mammogram while deeply engrossed in a self absorbed pout, I saw this sunset. I didn't hesitate to stop and photograph the stunning scene. Millions of sunset photographs have been taken before, but each sunset is unique - a life first for the viewer. It will only happen in that moment and never exactly the same again. At the second of it's greatest brilliance it will be suddenly gone.
     There's nothing special about these birds, either, though each one is a living being, as unique as a sunset. Ruby-crowned Kinglets and Hermit Thrushes have been photographed gazillions of times, also. When I see them, or hear their calls in the trees, I get a shivery thrill. I've rescued them after window strikes then held them in my hands. To feel a live bird in the palm of my hand is inexplicably magical. The essence of its life infused my skin and travelled up my arm to my own heart every time, a tiny pulse of understanding of the meaning of life.
                           

Ruby-crowned kinglet

                                                                                                                                                                                                       
    At the end of this past duck hunting season, while hundreds of water fowl were having their last moments on earth, I had a life first. I had picked up a pile of yard debris and was about to toss it  into the ocean on the cliff-side of our property when a boat with hunters arrived in front of our pier. Every year, hunters come into the cove. I don't like it, but I had accepted it. The gunfire riles up both my dog and I, but presumably, the hunters have licences and it's legal, so that's the breaks. Up until now, whenever hunters appeared, if I made my presence in the yard known, they left. None of them wanted to discharge a weapon within sight of a human being. I know some really nice people, people I would call my friends, who hunt. I've tried to tell myself that hunting is okay; that it serves some greater purpose that I haven't understood. I've tried to convince myself that hunting is a humane means of herd control and "migratory bird population control," as a game warden would later tell me. But the truth is, killing for sport has never sat right with me, so I've never been totally okay with hunting. Until now. Now, I know unequivocally what my position is.
     There were five hunters in the boat about three hundred feet away when I threw my armload of sticks over the cliff. They looked right at me, but instead of moving on, they commenced to blast away! Bird shot scampered across the water surface as my dog ran for the door, tail between his legs. I screamed at the top of my lungs. I screamed so loudly that I was hoarse for hours. "No! No! Stop!" I yelled, waving my arms frantically. One of the hunters waved to me in mock greeting. "Ha ha ha ha ha!" I could hear them jeering as they waved at me from the boat. "Go! Go, get the hell out of here!" I screeched waving them out of the cove. Still screaming, I had started to cry when a hunter standing in the bow of the boat shouldered his weapon and aimed at me. "She looks like a duck; let's shoot her!" He yelled while pointing his gun at my head. Peels of laughter rolled from the other hunters. Two of them waved, taunting and laughing. Suddenly, one of them bellowed, "Look! There's one!" Roughly a hundred feet off the bow, a lone eider at the end of its molt, unable to fly, bobbed on the water. Hardly looking, a man swung his gun around and blew the duck out of the water in a puff of feathers. Quickly, the helmsman spun the boat around. The shooter yanked the decimated duck from the drink, passing it off to the hunter that had threatened to shoot me. He flailed the eider like a ragged flag back and forth in the air at me while the hyenas waved and hooted beside him.
     Howling like a wounded animal myself, I ran into the house and dialed 911. To the credit of law enforcement, my report was taken very seriously. Dispatch notified the game warden who was an hour away. Though he came as quickly as he could, the hunters were long gone when he arrived. I gave additional details, filled out forms, showed him where they fired from and where I had stood. He took evidentiary photographs. But, to date, the hunters have not been caught.
    Eventually, I found my dog cowering under my bed and with him, I found a truth. In the emotional aftermath I discovered a conviction I didn't know I had. Hunting is wrong. Sport hunting is optional, not life sustaining. There is no justification for killing for entertainment. I've had rough things happen to me in my life. Sadly, some of them have involved violence. But this was the first time anyone pointed a loaded gun at me and threatened to shoot. The fleeting moment, when I thought I might be shot and my life taken, showed me another glimmer of the meaning of life. Some things are simply better understood in their absence, like a sunset after the sun goes down or a still, flightless bird.

"The Tree Of Life," photographed in the safety of my kitchen.