At this time of year, birds often fly around carrying bits of grass, twigs, cobwebs—and sometimes, here on the Hill, trash—for building nests. Many birds lay several clutches of eggs every season in an attempt to raise as many chicks as possible. But one of the Hill’s smallest songbirds, the ruby-crowned kinglet, has a different strategy.

The ruby-crowned kinglet gets its name because of a tiny red crest on the male’s head, but this crest only pops up when he is agitated or trying to attract a female. If you see a kinglet, you may not see any red at all. You may only see a tiny gray bird with some yellowish coloration on the underside.

The kinglet is easy to confuse with another common Hill resident, the bushtit, but the kinglet has white bars on the wings. Unlike bushtits, kinglets often hang out alone, and they flicker their wings constantly while feeding.

Now is a good time to look for female kinglets gathering nest materials. Kinglets almost always hide their nests near the top of conifer trees, so you’re unlikely to get a good look at the nest itself. If you could, you’d soon see a huge number of eggs—up to twelve—inside. All together, these eggs can weigh as much as the female kinglet that lays them.

Kinglets lay just one clutch of eggs in a season, and the male and female work together to feed the chicks. Together they can keep a large number of chicks alive. However, kinglets are probably too small to successfully rear the most common brood parasite in the neighborhood, the brown-headed cowbird. There are a handful of recorded instances of cowbird eggs being found in kinglet nests, but none of the cowbird chicks survived to adulthood.

Breeding season for ruby-crowned kinglets is just getting started, so look out for activity all month. Kinglets like to brood their young in the oldest, tallest conifers available, so check out Volunteer Park or the Washington Park Arboretum.

Interested in Learning More?

• Check out the ruby-crowned kinglet’s page at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
• The song of the ruby-crowned kinglet varies by region. Check out some recordings here, and note that the Oregon recording sounds most similar to our local kinglets.
• This video shows some nice footage of a male ruby-crowned kinglet flashing its crown.

More Capitol Hill Aviary

• Deadbeat Hill birds abandon chicks
• Hill mallards embroiled in battle of the sexes
• Little birds make big noise
• More…