Except the humming-bird and the winter wren, he is the
smallest bird we have. And yet, somewhere stored up in his diminutive body, is
warmth enough to withstand zero weather. With evident enjoyment of the cold,
he calls out a shrill, wiry zee, zee, zee, that rings merrily from the pines
and spruces when our fingers are too numb to hold the opera glasses in an
attempt to follow his restless fittings from branch to branch. Is it one of
the unwritten laws of birds that the smaller their bodies the greater their
activity?
When you see one kinglet about, you may be sure there are others not far away,
for, except in the nesting season, its habits are distinctly social, its
friendliness extending to the humdrum brown creeper, the chickadees, and the
nuthatches, in whose company it is often seen; indeed, it is likely to be in
almost any flock of the winter birds. They are a merry band as they go
exploring the trees together. The kinglet can hang upside down, too, like the
other acrobats, many of whose tricks he has learned; and it can pick off
insects from a tree with as business-like an air as the brown creeper, but
with none of that soulless bird's plodding precision.
In the early spring, just before this busy little sprite leaves us to nest in
Canada or Labrador -- for heat is the one thing that he can't cheerfully
endure -- a gushing, lyrical song bursts from his tiny throat -- a song whose
volume is so out of proportion to the bird's size that Nuttall's
classification of kinglets with wrens doesn't seem far wrong after all.
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