{"id":2140,"date":"2017-11-08T18:19:46","date_gmt":"2017-11-08T23:19:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/?p=2140"},"modified":"2017-11-21T16:22:46","modified_gmt":"2017-11-21T21:22:46","slug":"golden-crowned-kinglets-and-a-mystery-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/?p=2140","title":{"rendered":"Golden-crowned Kinglets and a Mystery Tree"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Walking on through the neighborhood, I heard the chatter of Ruby-crowned Kinglets, the <em>kleer<\/em> calls of Northern Flickers, and the calls of Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Eastern Phoebes, Northern Mockingbirds, and both White-breasted and Brown-headed Nuthatches. Several Mourning Doves flushed up in a flurry of whistling wings from a grassy yard, and there were Eastern Bluebirds, Chipping Sparrows, House Finches and Eastern Towhees.<\/p>\n<p>A Pileated Woodpecker worked on the trunk of a pecan tree, the loud <em>whacks<\/em> of its bill standing out against the quiet, and its big red crest like a flare in the misty light. Then a second Pileated Woodpecker flew to another tree nearby, flashing the white patches in its wings.<\/p>\n<p>As I came close to a large oak tree on one side of the road, I began to hear what seemed to be the high, sibilant <em>ti-ti-ti<\/em> calls of <em>many <\/em>Golden-crowned Kinglets. Though I\u2019ve seen a number of Golden-crowned Kinglets here this Fall, they\u2019ve been widely scattered, with only one or two at a time. This sounded like a whole congregation. The very high calls \u2013 usually so quiet you might not even know they\u2019re around \u2013 mingled together so that they sounded almost shrill.<\/p>\n<p>This was when I really wished very badly for binoculars. Up in this tree \u2013 which still held a lot of faded leaves \u2013 I could, indeed, see <em>many<\/em> small birds flitting around, though what they were, I could not be sure. In the gray, blurry light, there was no way I could see more than little dark winged shapes. I\u2019m sure that at least one or two were Golden-crowned Kinglets, but doubt that all of them were. Some probably were Chickadees and Titmice.<\/p>\n<p>I thought there might have been a Brown Creeper among them, because its calls are similar, and I searched the trunk for several moments, trying to spot one \u2013 but if there was a Creeper, I couldn\u2019t find it. After a long time standing there and watching, feeling very frustrated and annoyed with myself, I finally walked on with a deep sigh of resignation. I\u2019ll never know for sure what all those little birds were.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Walking on through the neighborhood, I heard the chatter of Ruby-crowned Kinglets, the kleer calls of Northern Flickers, and the calls of Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Eastern Phoebes, Northern Mockingbirds, and both White-breasted and Brown-headed Nuthatches. Several Mourning Doves flushed up in a flurry of whistling wings from a grassy yard, and there were Eastern Bluebirds, Chipping [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2140"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2140"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2142,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2140\/revisions\/2142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}