Visual Identification

Voice

Mostly soft twitters and tiny chirps. Song is currently unknown to us.

Habitat

Ruby-Crowned Kinglets spend most of their time in forest edge habitats. This includes stream side forests, forest edge, brushy forests, and suburbia. They are most likely to be seen in areas with berry trees, especially holly trees.

Behavior

Ruby-Crowned Kinglets are mostly seen foraging for berries and small insects in the mid layer of small trees and large shrubs. They are very thorough, and leave almost no branches unchecked. They usually spend most of their time in holly trees, especially when it snows and finding insects is a hard job. They sometimes will fly to the middle of a large oak tree, then work their way down.

They travel in small, tight, mixed groups. Groups usually consist of Kinglets (ruby and golden crowned), Nuthatches, Chickadees, and Titmice.

Comparisons

Where and When to see them

They are most common at Glencarlyn Park at the end of fall. They are usually seen in November. The directions for the best spot for viewing them is shown below:

Start at Glencarlyn Park Playground and head in the direction of the bathrooms (building with a pyramid roof). After passing the bathrooms, continue forward, joining the W&OD trail by taking the right path out of the parking lot. Continue on that trail until you come across a bridge. Right before the bridge starts, on the left side, there is a narrow dirt path the veers away from the path. While on that path, both Golden-crowned and Ruby-crowned Kinglets enjoy foraging in the woods to your left. If you follow the trail further up the stream, some can be seen further up the hill, where another dirt trail exists that you can also access. One can access it by taking the left blacktop path after taking the right path to exit the bathroom's parking lot, then taking a small dirt trail to your right near the top of the hill. Here is link as to the location.