Golden-crowned kinglet

Golden-crowned kinglet
In Canada
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Regulidae
Genus: Regulus
Species: R. satrapa
Binomial name
Regulus satrapa
(Lichtenstein, 1823)
In North Carolina

The golden-crowned kinglet (Regulus satrapa) is a very small songbird.

Adults are olive-gray on the upperparts with white underparts, with thin bills and short tails. They have white wing bars, a black stripe through the eyes and a yellow crown surrounded by black. The adult male has an orange patch in the middle of the yellow crown.

Their breeding habitat is coniferous forests across Canada, the northeastern and western United States, Mexico and Central America. They nest in a well-concealed hanging cup suspended from a conifer branch.

These birds migrate to the United States. Some birds are permanent residents in coastal regions and in the southern parts of their range. Northern birds remain further north in winter than the ruby-crowned kinglet.

They forage actively in trees or shrubs, mainly eating insects, insect eggs and spiders.

They give a series of high-pitched calls on a single note, and tend not to fear human approach.

Description

Adults are olive-gray on the upperparts with white underparts, with thin bills and short tails. They have white wing bars, a black stripe through the eyes and a yellow crown surrounded by black. The adult male has an orange patch in the middle of the yellow crown. The juvenile is similar to the adult, but with a browner back and without the yellow crown.[2] This is one of the smallest passerines in North America. Its length, at 8 to 11 cm (3.1 to 4.3 in), is probably the shortest of any American passerine. However, its weight, which averages around 5.9 g (0.21 oz), with a range of 4 to 7.8 g (0.14 to 0.28 oz),[3] is marginally more on average than the long-tailed bushtit[4] and black-tailed gnatcatcher.[5]

Distribution

Golden-crowned kinglet is a widespread North American bird, breeding in many US states, and over much of Canada, and wintering across much of the continent south to Florida, Texas and Mexico. It also occurs in isolated mountain ranges in southern Mexico and Guatemala, where it is represented by separate subspecies.

Taxonomy

The kinglets are a small group of birds sometimes included in the Old World warblers, but frequently given family status,[6] especially as recent research showed that, despite superficial similarities, the crests are taxonomically remote from the warblers.[7][8] The names of the family, Regulidae, and its only genus, Regulus, are derived from the Latin regulus, a diminutive of rex, "a king",[9] and refer to the characteristic orange or yellow crests of adult kinglets.

There are three migratory subspecies in the United States and Canada, differing in size, bill length, back and rump colours, wing-bar width and colour, and length of supercilium:[10]

The subspecies "amoenus" has been synonymised with apache as the distinction between these populations are obscured by individual variation.[10]

Two other (non-migratory) subspecies occur south of the bird's core range, although these are weakly differentiated from each other and so are perhaps best synonymised:[11]

Hybridization with ruby-crowned kinglet has been reported to have possibly occurred.[10]

References

  1. ↑ BirdLife International (2012). "Regulus satrapa". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
  2. ↑ Sibley, David Allen (2000). The Sibley Guide to Birds. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. p. 394. ISBN 0-679-45122-6.
  3. ↑ Dunning, Jr., J. B. 1993. CRC handbook of avian body masses. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.
  4. ↑ Hertz, P. E., J. V. Remsen, Jr., and S. I. Jones. 1976. Ecological complementarity of three sympatric parids in a California oak woodland. Condor 78:307-316.
  5. ↑ Atwood, J. L. 1988. Speciation and geographic variation in Black-tailed Gnatcatchers. Ornithol. Monogr. 42
  6. ↑ Monroe, Burt L. (February 1992). "The new DNA-DNA avian classification: What's it all about?". British Birds. 85 (2): 53–61.
  7. ↑ Barker, F Keith; Barrowclough, George F; Groth, Jeff G (2002). "A phylogenetic hypothesis for passerine birds: taxonomic and biogeographic implications of an analysis of nuclear DNA sequence data" (PDF). Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B. 269 (1488): 295–308. doi:10.1098/rspb.2001.1883. PMC 1690884Freely accessible. PMID 11839199.
  8. ↑ Spicer, Greg S; Dunipace, Leslie (2004). "Molecular phylogeny of songbirds (Passerifor-mes) inferred from mitochondrial 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequences" (PDF). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 30: 325–335. doi:10.1016/S1055-7903(03)00193-3. PMID 14715224.
  9. ↑ Brookes, Ian (editor-in-chief) (2006). The Chambers Dictionary, ninth edition. Edinburgh: Chambers. pp. 223, 735, 1277. ISBN 0-550-10185-3.
  10. 1 2 3 pp. 374-75 in Pyle, Peter (1997). Identification Guide to North American Birds Part 1. Bolinas, California: Slate Creek Press. ISBN 0-9618940-2-4.
  11. ↑ Martens, Jochen; Päckert, Martin "Family Regulidae (Kinglets & Firecrests)" pp. 330–349 in del Hoyo, Josep; Elliott, Andrew; Christie, David A., eds. (2006). Handbook of the Birds of the World: Old World Flycatchers to Old World Warblers v. 11. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. ISBN 84-96553-06-X.
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