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Where are the Kinglets? GBBC results



Hi all,

I thought it was just me! I had observed both species of kinglets in my 
yard this winter, but had not seen either in weeks. I didn't think to 
connect it with the snow until reading Harry's post just now. But even 
after spending most of Thursday-Sunday at home recuperating from the 
stomach flu, not a kinglet to be found. Carolina Wren, Pine and 
Yellow-rumped Warblers, all three nuthatches, all the finches and other 
regulars, and Red-shouldered Hawks and Barred Owl to boot, but no 
kinglets!

So now I'm looking at the GBBC results. This happened February 18-21, 
well after the snows. I know, these results have their problems, but I 
think for common solitary species like kinglets the errors should cancel 
each other out. The number of reports for Ruby-crowned Kinglet is 67, 
ranking it 50th out of 152 species observed in North Carolina. For 
context, this puts it slightly below Killdeer, Brown Creeper, and Red- 
breasted Nuthatch; slightly above Hermit Thrush, Belted Kingfisher, and 
Eastern Phoebe. Golden-crowned is all the way down at 76th place with 21 
reports, below Winter Wren, Great Horned and Barred Owl, and American 
Kestrel; and barely edging out Common Loon, Bufflehead, and Eastern 
Screech-Owl (which I, too, have yet to see or hear in the Triangle, 
although I've seen one near the coast). 

Looking at the 1999 GBBC results, there were 95 reports of Ruby-crowns, 
ranking it 33rd; and 35 reports of Golden-crowned Kinglets, ranking it 
52nd out of 135 species observed. I would bet money that more people from 
North Carolina participated this year than last (Allison Wells, can you 
confirm or deny this?), but fewer reports of both kinglet species. 
Compare this to Northern Cardinal, from 837 reports in 1999 to 1691 
reports in 2000; Carolina Chickadee from 810 to 1686; Downy Woodpecker, 
433 to 848; American Kestrel, 27 to 33; and so on. Kinglets have 
definitely headed in the wrong direction. And given how ridiculously 
superabundant they were as recently as January - when Doug Shadwick led 
the CHBC trip after the Pea Ridge Road Red Crossbills, kinglets were far 
and away the most common bird in evidence - Harry's hypothesis that the 
snowstorms wiped them out seems like a good one.

What other species might we expect to have declined? Yellow-rumped 
Warblers can survive on fruit. Woodpeckers, nuthatches, etc. can eat 
seeds or chisel out bugs which are buried under bark, out of the reach of 
kinglets. Wrens might be another group I would expect to decline, but 
Winter, House, and Carolina Wrens are all up in the GBBC numbers from 
1999 to 2000...

Josh



Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Zoology

jsr6@acpub.duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/