Our 12 Months of Birding series continues with a bird we often see in February, the Golden-crowned Kinglet. This royally named tiny bird spends winters in our Pisgah National Forest neighborhood and the rest of the year in the northern U.S. and Canada. More often heard than seen, the Golden-crowned Kinglet can be challenging to find; generally we see and hear them in the evergreens and shrubby areas on the edges of the wetlands, which is at the southern end of the property where the boardwalk is located.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology describes the Golden-crowned Kinglet this way: “Golden-crowned Kinglets are pale olive above and gray below, with a black-and-white striped face and bright yellow-orange crown patch. They have a thin white wingbar and yellow edges to their black flight feathers.” Learn more at allaboutbirds.org/guide/Golden-crowned_Kinglet/.