Hi Tweets,

Having seen the same thing---ground-feeding Golden-crowned Kinglets (GCKI)
along Stanley Park's Seawall, most years in January and February---I think
that they move to ground level when they've depleted the cone seed-crop up
in the crowns of the coniferous trees in which they've spent the last few
months foraging.

Their apparent 'tameness' is entirely characteristic of boreal-forest
species which winter in such harsh conditions that they can't really afford
a panic-radius (Gray Jays come to mind), which might indicate that the
GCKI's which winter at our latitudes come from much further north and the
GCKI's which breed here either move south or revert to previous cold boreal
forest foraging strategies.

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
loblollyboy at gmail.com

Every answer deepens the mystery.
- E.O. Wilson
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20110114/e98345be/attachment.htm