BIRDS OF NANTUCKET
A RINGING IN YOUR EARS?
by Kenneth Turner Blackshaw
One of the frustrating symptoms of advancing maturity is losing your high frequency hearing. It's a subtle and insidious malady because you aren't aware of it until someone else points out a sound that you can't hear.

Golden-crowned Kinglet

If it's conversation, sibilant sounds like Ts, Ss, and Zs get muddled. Learning a foreign language after sixty is a challenge. There are also many birds that get by you. Almost all bird contact notes are in this range. My mom used to bemoan that there were no Cedar Waxwings around anymore. Without hearing their calls, there is no trigger that causes your head to snap up as ten or fifteen of them fly by overhead.

This week's bird produces a high-pitched ringing sound, written as "see - see - see" in the bird books. It has a very ventriloquial effect. You think you can tell exactly where it's coming from and yet there are no birds in sight. Usually you are in pines, firs, or spruce trees. To see them you must think small, for next to hummingbirds, these are our smallest birds. Then you should look up, because they are invariably higher than you expect them to be.

We are talking about Golden-crowned Kinglets, Regulus satrapa. "Regulus" is a little king and "satrap" is an interesting word, meaning not quite a potentate - a ruler easily corrupted.

As I mentioned, they are tiny but they are full of spunk, or perhaps excessive innocence. They are known to be so confiding that they allow people to actually touch them and stroke their backs! Think about this - a creature that is actually smaller than your hand allowing this to happen.

When you see a Golden-crowned Kinglet you are momentarily overwhelmed by all the field marks - two wingbars, black and white eye-lines, and usually a bright yellow crown. The bird books show the males with an orange crown but I only seem to observe that if the bird is in hand.

Golden-crowned Kinglets have only just arrived on Nantucket to spend the winter. Yes, it is temperate enough here even in our coldest months. If you read my column two weeks ago, you were reminded that size matters. The larger you are, the more efficient you are at retaining heat. So, isn't it amazing that a tiny mite like a kinglet would choose to stay through the winter months?

You must couple this with the realization that these little guys subsist almost completely on animal matter. How on earth is this possible after days below freezing? The secret lies in the fact that air temperature is misleading. Even a few moments of early morning sunshine can stir things to activity. When you are so small, even minute items can appear large.

Edward Howe Forbush visited Wareham in 1905 and found these energetic little beasts feeding on little tufts of pine needles. Studying these tufts before the kinglets could clean them out he found them infested with numerous black specks, the eggs of plant lice. Think of that for your Nutrisystem diet! But if you can just find enough of them!

So, here we have these tiny little birds, from beak to tail less than the distance across your hand, and here they are, so full of life in winter's worst offering.

They nest farther north than we are - and also west - in the Berkshires. As you would expect for such tough little critters, they start early in April, ahead of the competition. Their nests are wonderful structures, hanging from tiny twigs. Mrs. Kinglet fashions this from spider silk, moss, and lichen, sitting or hovering in the developing structure so that it may eventually be tailored to her form.

Then, amazingly, eight or nine eggs may be laid, so many they must rest in two layers within the nest. Momma Kinglet must not only incubate, but also shuffle this precious cargo, top to bottom, to insure each mini-kinglet will get the proper warmth.

The product of all this effort is just arriving on our windy and piney island. If you visit our woods now, and your high frequency hearing is still percolating, you will hear the delicate ringing in your ears. No, it is not tinnitus. It is a few dozen tiny life forms saying, "I'm here, where are you?" Be patient and watch for something moving in the leaves or needles. Then just stay still and perhaps you'll be able to actually touch a kinglet.

These feathered dynamos, common now with migration, will hang on through the winter and are a feature of our island landscape until the end of April when they flutter off, north and west, to take another shot at keeping that ringing sound in

your ears. I

George C. West creates illustrations for these articles. If you enjoy 'social' birding, join the Nantucket Bird Club at 8 a.m. Sundays in front of Nantucket High School for a two to three hour birding trip. Call 228-1693 for more information.

To hear about rare birds, or to leave a bird report call the Massachusetts Audubon hot line at 888-224-6444, option 4. Ask Ken a question at: kenandcindy@copper.net.