Ruby-crowned Kinglet

About the Ruby-crowned Kinglet

The Ruby-crowned Kinglet is a tiny, plump ball of nervous energy - olive-gray with a bold broken white eye-ring, white wing bar, and a male's scarlet crown patch that stays hidden until he is excited, when it flares like a lit match. At under a quarter ounce it is one of the smallest songbirds in North America.

Kinglets never stop moving: flicking their wings compulsively, hover-gleaning at branch tips, and working through foliage after insects too small for most birds to bother with. For such a small bird the voice is absurd - a long, loud, rollicking song that seems to come from a bird three times its size.

In Texas the Ruby-crowned Kinglet is a common and confiding winter visitor statewide from October through April, turning up in every brushy corner from city hedges to cedar brakes.