On Jan 13, 2011, at 8:24 PM, notcalm at comcast.net wrote:

> The two times this year that I have seen this behavior by GC Kinglets, there was no wind. However, one followed a wind storm by one day and the other several days after the storm. There was no wind or rain at these times of ground feeding. So maybe they ground feed in more than one set of circumstances. On the January first sighting, mentioned below, there was a major freeze in place.

I was going to write my own post but Dan already did it. :-)

The times I've seen this recently is in the cold (around freezing).

The other observation was the kinglets were foraging (at least in different parts of the Volunteer Park) in the canopy, on tree trunks, in the understory (rhodies, blackberries and other bushes) and on the ground. They weren't hiding from the wind as there wasn't any at the time (calm or ony a couple of MPH). There seemed to be food everwhere. Or perhaps they were needing to pack as much food in to keep their temperature up (shades of Bernd Heinrich's Vermont Ruby-crowned Kinglets in "Winter World").

I also noticed Black-capped Chikadees ground feeding around the same time too.

Another similar episode with almost stepping on a ground feeding bird on a path in Interlaken Park last spring. A Pine Siskin was gathering nesting material on the path. If I had noticed it and stopped I would have been on top of it.

Sometimes the concentration seems to be on eating or gathering nesting material and perhaps ignoring "those big lumbering humans" as a threat. Perhaps it's because the small bird time scale is sped up? Would you be scared watching a human moving in 10x slow motion if you could move at normal speed? But I felt I got very close.
--
Kevin Purcell (Capitol Hill, Seattle, WA)
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