North Woods Midget Birds

     Winter wrens, golden-crowned kinglets and ruby-crowned kinglets are all species of tiny birds that nest in northern coniferous forests in North America.  All these birds are about four inches long, lively, cute and have relatives in Europe and Asia.  Each species is camouflaged in its niche.  All feed mostly on small invertebrates and their eggs, and they all have small, thin beaks to tweezer their food out of hiding. 
     All three species are very active in getting their invertebrate food.  The kinglets are interesting to watch as they almost constantly dart and hover here and there among twigs of the trees as they inspect each twig for food.  They are almost impossible to see with binoculars.  The wrens almost incessantly scurry across fallen leaf litter on forest floors after invertebrates.  They are often difficult to see at all and sometimes I wonder if I really did see one, or just imagined it.      
     Male wrens and ruby-crowns have loud songs so genders of each species can find each other in the thickets of woodlands.  All pass through the Middle Atlantic  States in their spring and fall migrations.  Sometimes I see a small group of ruby-crowns inspecting the twigs of a bush or two in our back yard.  A few individuals of each species winter here as well.
     Winter wrens are dark-brown with black barring which allows them to blend into their brown, fallen leaf cover niche on the forest floor.  This little bird is often puffed out, like a feathered ball with a short, upright tail.  Winter wrens raise about six young per brood in holes in trees close to the ground, crevices between rocks and low in bushes in coniferous woods across Canada, in New England and down the Appalachian Mountains.
     Winter wrens winter in woods and thickets, usually near streams in the southeastern quarter of the United States.  They spend winter nights tucked away in some sheltered place in the woods where they avoid cold winds and snow.  And year around, wherever they may be, winter wrens creep across the leaf cover, into rock crevices and under logs and brush piles like feathered mice after small invertebrates.
     Golden-crowned kinglets breed in coniferous woods across Canada and down the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains.  Each female makes a hanging cup on the end of a coniferous branch where she lays about six eggs. 
     Golden-crowns winter in woods and thickets in most of the United States.  Here in the east, a few golden-crowns join troops of chickadees and titmice as those birds roam through the woods to get invertebrate food. 
     Golden-crowns are olive in color, with yellow in their wings and tails.  They have two vertical, white bars on each wing and males have orange crowns while their mates have yellow ones.  The crowns on both genders are bordered by black, making the warm colors even more attractive.  
     Ruby-crowns resemble their golden-crowned relatives, except in the present species the males have red crowns and both genders have a white ring around each large, dark eye.  Ruby-crowns nest in coniferous forests across Canada and Alaska, in New England and down the Rocky Mountains.  They winter in thickets and woods across the southern half of the United States.             
     This autumn, winter and spring, watch for these tiny, but pretty, birds in woods, thickets and older suburban areas where they search for invertebrates and their eggs.  Like chickadees and other birds, they can help make a winter day more bearable.  And its interesting to know where they spend the summer raising young.