Golden-Crowned Kinglet

WHEN the collecting fever weakened and shotgun was displaced by rifle, inanimate targets, tincans, glass balls, etc. became victims of the single bullet. There were times when hunting instincts reawoke but I never returned to the scatter gun. The longing was appeased by shouldering the 22-caliber Colts and tramping Maine hills after Ruffed Grouse. Yes, I got some — on the wing too — practice had made that weapon behave at my shoulder. Interest in all dead birds, even a partridge, waned and lethal weapons were superseded by the binoculars.

If you want real wing shooting try following a Kinglet with a pair of glasses. — April. — Saxifrage whitens thin soil atop the rocks and bluets peek thru new grass of the wood road. A flock of gold and flame crested midgets are fluttering amid the sumac clusters of last year's seeds, filling the dawn air with a medley of prolonged, exquisite notes, so loud that it does not seem possible their tiny throats could utter them. The twin desires of song and food frequently conflict and some choristers' flute harmonics were terminated in the middle of the solo by a billful of spiders discovered in the seed crevices.

Altho scarcely larger than a Hummer, noncompacted feathers making it appear twice the size, Kinglets are among the most agile and sprightly of our birds. When the bustling troop left the open sumac tops for the hemlocks I could not shoot one into the glasses' field at all tho the unaided eye easily detected waving sprays of foliage where they were hunting.

Most writers agree their vocal repertoire defies written description. With this dictum I heartily agree but a wanderer afield can identify these exquisite little wood pyxies with their fleck o' sunshine crowns by remembering two things: an ascending song of powerful liquid notes, perfectly modulated and a tiny olive bird.