Home › Volumes › Bird Homes › Semi-pensile, Pensile or Hanging Nests
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Adult male--Upper parts olive green, crown orange bordered by black; an undefined whitish line over the eye; under parts whitish.
Adult Female--Has yellow instead of orange on the crown. Length--4.07.
Breeding Range--The elevated and more northern part of the United States.
The nests seem to vary greatly, both in form, method of support, and in the materials used in their construction. Minot describes a nest he found in the White Mountains as being "globular, with an entrance in the upper part; it was composed of hanging moss, ornamented with bits of dead leaves, and lined chiefly with feathers." Three nests found by Mr. Brewster* were in brief as follows: First, within two feet of the top of a spruce tree sixty feet from the ground, suspended among the fine pendent twigs, resembling the Baltimore oriole's nest in its position; second, twenty feet below the top of a large spruce, in a cluster of stiff twigs, built something after the manner of the vireo's nest, but supported on all sides by radiating twigs; third, in a spruce tree, five feet from the end of the branch, the nest suspended from above and resting on a platform of sticks. It is difficult to know whether these birds habitually build a pensile or a globular nest, or a combination of the two. The material used in constructing these nests is green moss, lichen, usnea (moss), lined with strips of bark, fine roots, and feathers. The eggs, white to dark cream colour; with small dots or blotches of light brown and pale lavender, vary in number from 6 to 10. Size--.56 x .44. See Fig. 21, Plate C.