Species-Specific Management (SSM)

Kinglets

The golden-crowned (Regulus satrapa) and ruby-crowned (Regulus calendula) kinglets are among the smallest of America's songbirds. They belong to a large family of Old World Insecteaters called Muscicapidae. Both species are short distance migrants. The ruby-crown winters farther south than the hardier golden-crown. Large numbers of them travel as far south as the Yucatan Peninsula. However, the vast majority of both species spend the winter months in the southern United States. Both kinglets are common wintering guests throughout Virginia and the golden-crown is often a year-round resident at high elevations within the Appalachian Mountain Chain. During the breeding season, both species prefer the spruce-fir forests of the northern and mountainous western United States and Canada, but may also nest in pine, fir, and hemlock woods and cedar bogs. While the ruby-crowned often chooses forest edge or open stands for nesting, the golden-crowned prefers more thick situations.

With up to 12 eggs in a nest, the kinglets lay the largest clutches of any North American Passerines of their size. The kinglets prefer to build their nests in a coniferous tree, from 6 to 60 feet above the ground. The kinglets are territorial on their breeding grounds. Sample densities for the golden-crown during the breeding season include 1 pair per 2 acres in an Adirondack coniferous forest and 1 pair per 3.1 acres in virgin spruce-hemlock bog forest in Maryland.

The ruby-crown is more of a generalist in foraging than the golden-crown. The young are fed by both parents; the male assumes great feeding responsibility during early chick development. Foods such as very small caterpillars, cicada larvae, small crickets, moths and butterflies, ant pupae, and snails are brought to the nestlings by the parents. The birds locate insects among leaf litter, bark of twigs, tree branches, and clusters of conifer needles. Little or no vegetable matter is eaten during the breeding season.

The two kinglets also differ slightly in their winter habitat preferences. The golden-crown prefers moist coniferous or mixed deciduous forests with thickets and low angles of weedy growth while the ruby-crown will choose a dry coniferous or deciduous forest understory often at the forest edge. In winter, the diet of the kinglets include spiders and their eggs, a variety of insects and their eggs, pseudoscorpions, and small amounts of vegetable matter. Plant material includes such local species as winged sumac berries, eastern red cedar berries, dogwood berries, and various weed seeds.

The breeding habitat of kinglets may be adversely affected by logging and wildfire. Except for the limited breeding activity of golden-crowns in the Appalachians, the Virginia landowner has little opportunity to manage kinglet breeding habitat. It is necessary to stay in touch with international developments and changes in land use. Land exploitation is rampant in Central America and can affect the breeding areas.

The bulk of management for kinglets in Virginia should involve work to optimize winter habitat since winter is the most prevalent time for their residence in Virginia. Human activity probably has minimal effect on wintering grounds because of the varied habitats used by kinglets.

Both species will use all stages of regeneration in swamp hardwoods and/or oak-pine forest types on their wintering grounds. In addition, the mature and old-growth stages of pine forest types are utilized by both species on the wintering grounds. It is important to remember that any habitat manipulation which you perform on your property should be followed up with feed-back on the success of your work. Make a note of the number of kinglets that you observe on your property before and after manipulation and make changes in your future management plans accordingly.

A contribution of Eric Wiseman (1996)
Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061-0321

This Web site is maintained by R. H. Giles, Jr.
Last revision January 17, 2000.