Hello, tweets.

I'll add to the comments of others that I have seen Golden-crowned Kinglets feeding on the ground, very tame, just as many have reported, quite a few times, always in winter. I have observed that it was always (just about always?) associated with bad weather - extreme cold, high winds, heavy rains, etc. Presumably any of these conditions could make foraging more difficult up in the canopy where they usually feed.

Oddly, it doesn't seem that other birds up there with them, for example Chestnut-backed Chickadees, are so likely to feed on the ground at those times. But the hover-gleaning foraging mode of kinglets may make foraging in bad weather in exposed places especially difficult. Think about a whipping Douglas-fir branch and a bird the size of a kinglet - could get propelled into space.

Steve Mlodinow and I recently came upon a male Northern Harrier at Fort Casey on Whidbey Island that was in the process of eating a kinglet. We couldn't determine which species it was, but it must have been out in the open.
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Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
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