Thursday, June 17, 2010

Golden Crowned Kinglet


This little guy here is a Golden Crowned Kinglet. I'd never even heard of one, much less known that that they are native to our region. I guess part of the reason for that is that the bird is barely longer than my thumb.
This one has a story. One day just as I was approaching our front door to go out-WHAM! something crashed right into the storm door window. I looked out to see this guy laying on my porch- out cold. I'm sorry but I had to laugh for a second, thinking about the window cleaner commercial. "Just like on TV !" I said.
Quickly, though, I turned my attention to the unusual looking bird to see if it was hurt. After a few seconds of blowing in it's face ( that's as close as I was coming to CPR) it's little eyes squinted up at me and then, more like a cartoon than real life, those eyes seemed to bug out and it flew away. The flight was a short one though as it skidded across the lawn- more reminiscent of a fighter plane going down than the delicate landing of a tiny bird. To make matters even funnier than they already were (sorry, but it was) the little guy raised up only to stagger sideways a few steps and fall over.
This time when I picked it up it's eyes were open and watching me a little more keenly than before. Well, to make a long story just a little shorter it perched on my thumb for several minutes and when I put it down to get the camera it stayed until my return to pose for several close-ups. After I had my fill of all the different angles I put the camera down and this guy voluntarily stepped back up onto my thumb for a few more minutes and as suddenly as he appeared, he left- this time testing the flight controls from one tree to another.
I'm happy to say that he only pooped once and I'm pretty sure that was at the time of the a fore mentioned bugging eyes...
Anyway, I was happy to be of assistance.

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