The arrival of ruby-crowned kinglets is a sure sign that winter is on the way.
It wasn’t the temperature dipping that made me realize winter was coming, but instead, a bantam bird called a ruby-crowned kinglet in a bush outside my study window.
I perked up at the sight of the winter bird, a flying elf that migrates here from breeding grounds in northern spruce and fir forests. Breeding territories include places like Alaska, Canada, northern Minnesota and New England. But I have no idea were my ruby-crowned kinglet bred. Probably in northern states or the eastern half of Canada.
What a long trip for a bird that ranks among the smallest of songbirds, even smaller than Carolina chickadees. The tiny bird has a plump appearance, like a little feathered butterball.
Reports of the bird in Houston have trickled in since late September. Females arrive earlier than males, with numbers peaking in October and early November.
This frolicsome bird moved its olive-green body quickly around the porterweed bush, scurried up and down a leafless sweetgum tree, then, finally, hopped onto a bird feeder. Clueing its identity was an incessant wing flicking.
That’s not a nervous disorder; wing jerking is an inborn behavior accompanying its hyperactivity while foraging for a diet of insects. The bird can’t stay still for more than a few seconds, hopping from branch to branch, gleaning insects from leaves and twigs then suddenly flying up in the air to catch another bug.
I went outside to get a closer look at the winter harbinger. When I pursed my lips and made kissing sounds, the bird hopped to the edge of a tree twig, leaned forward with rump in the air and erected a tuft of red feathers on the crown to reveal itself as a male.
Male ruby-crowned kinglets are as aggressive as they are hyperactive. They will often chase off chickadees, titmice and other small birds from feeding spots. The one in my yard warded me off as a possible predator.
Meanwhile, I noticed its wide, white eye-ring, broken on top and bottom like a pair of supersize eyeglasses with cracks in the frame. An angled white bar ran down each wing.
I listened as the bird offered its raspy, highpitched, double-noted call — “chip-it, chip-it, chipit” — one of the telltale sounds of winter.