Sounds invade my yard every morning. One is the rapid tap-tap-tap of an old-fashioned typewriter, but with the speed of a bubble machine. I hear the sound, see nothing, check with the birding app, Merlin, and see Merlin thinks a Ruby-crowned Kinglet is vocalizing. I have to trust Merlin, since it knows so much and I so little.
Maybe I have seen the featureless outline of the bird, safe behind several layers of branches or a row of hearty bushes. But this bird is shy around me and so small that I might convince myself that it is a resting hummingbird if it weren’t also stout in a tiny way. I know it is not one of the Bushtits, ruffling the leaves and the twigs on the trees that frame my yard. They are also adept at hiding, but pass by in a quiet procession. If I didn’t see movement in my surroundings, I might not know the Bushtits scavenged nearby. These Kinglets announce themselves with voices that command attention, but they are not so willing to reveal anything more than their birdsong. I might know the bird is nearby. I can identify their call. But I have never seen the ruby crown.
A flit flashes at the edge of my sight. It emerges from the top of my neighbor’s coastal redwood and slides through the air in a fraction of a second to the next tree. My mind registers the idea of red, almost impossibly from the front of the bird. I believe I must have seen it wrong, but the impression of something red on this flash of a bird remains.
I want to think it is a Ruby-crowned Kinglet. I want to think I have seen and identified this illusive bird. But the red image isn’t from the top of the bird, and I shouldn’t argue with my memory just because I want to see what I want to see. It could more rightly be a House Finch, a show-stealing presence in my yard, like the student in elementary school who always raises his hand to answer questions.
I should be satisfied with the House Finch, that normal, accommodating, serenading bird. It fulfills all my birding requirements: I hear it, see it, watch its behaviors. The Finch likes my backyard and agrees with my presence there. But playing hard-to-get, the Kinglet entices me, and I fall prey to the hide and seek call of nature. I don’t think I’ll be satisfied with House Finches while Ruby-crowned Kinglets are nearby. My search goes on.
Peterson Field Guide tells me the bird is tiny – 4 ¼ inches. Just ¼ inch larger than the Anna’s Hummingbirds that live nearby. I also learn that my quest to see the ruby crown may never be realized. Only males have the ruby crown. And the crowns remain hidden unless the Kinglet is excited.
To find a tiny Kinglet among the giant of the natural world and to recognize that bird as a male and then to see it in an excited state is asking too much. Only their call is a friend to my backyard. The vocals are an easy find, the rest is near impossible. But those are my marching orders. Find that elusive, hummingbird-sized, male Kinglet and make sure it shows me its ruby crown.
If your search ever brings you close to a sighting, please let me know.
Susan Vasquez 