Kinglets and Gnatcatchers

     Recently I saw a blue-gray gnatcatcher fluttering about among the twigs of trees close to the porch of people I was visiting.  It was a dainty, little bird that reminded me of a tiny northern mockingbird, with its long-tail, overall shape and pale-gray color on top.  The white ring around each dark eye gave the gnatcatcher an innocent look.  As its name implies, that small bird was busily catching and eating tiny insects from the trees' leaves and twigs.
     Two kinds of kinglets and blue-gray gnatcatchers in eastern North America belong to the Old World family of warblers, with a few species in the New World.  Kinglets and gnatcatchers, being related, have characteristics in common.  They are all small, plain and thin-billed for eating tiny insects and insect eggs, but are still quite attractive.  These dainty birds  seem never to be still while flitting and foraging for food in the trees, making identification difficult.  They flick their wings and hover briefly before leaves and twigs while inspecting them for food, then dart after a tidbit.
     The kinglets are called golden-crowned and ruby-crowned because of the feathering on their crowns.  Male golden-crowns have orange crowns bordered with black stripes, while their mates have yellow ones.  Each male ruby crown has a red patch on top of his head.  Both species are otherwise olive in color with two vertical, white bars on each wing.  
     Both kinglet species nest in coniferous trees in Canada's boreal forests and down the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains.  And both species winter from the middle of the United States south to the Gulf of Mexico and Mexico.  We here in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania usually see both types of kinglets during their spring and autumn migrations.
     Blue-gray gnatcatchers, however, nest in the treetops of moist, bottomland forests in the southern United States, north to Pennsylvania.  Though common, they aren't noticed much because the are small, camouflaged and stick to the trees where they can easily hide.  Occasionally a post-breeding gnatcatcher will forage for food in an older suburban area with its many tall trees. 
     Gnatcatchers make beautiful nests but we seldom see them unless one is blown out of a tree and is lying on he ground.  Gnatcatcher nurseries are lovely, deep, little cups of fine grasses, lined on the outside with lichens to camouflage the cradle and bound together with spider webbing.
     Though, generally, not easy to spot because of their small size and camouflaged feathering, kinglets and gnatcatchers are handsome and energetic, little birds.  They are worth watching for during the seasons they are in the reader's region.