Here’s another hyperactive feathered ping-pong ball, the Ruby crowned Kinglet!
I photographed this tiny dynamo earlier this week while birding in the rain at Greenfield Lake in Wilmington North Carolina.

While photographing the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher featured in my last post certainly posed a challenge, Ruby crowned Kinglet’s are even harder to get a good photo of.

First off they are tiny.
Measuring a scant 9 to 11 cm in length, these small birds are tough to focus on while they move through the leaves.
And did I mention that they are fast?!
Lol, omg they are ridiculously speedy hunters when they’re on a mission to find a meal.
In fact, the last photograph featured below demonstrates this as you can see that my camera froze the the raindrops in midair but the Kinglet launching down off of his perch is blurry due to his speed.

Weighing in at 5-6g, Ruby-crowned Kinglets are among the family of the smallest passerine birds in the world. Since their tiny size poses high energetic demands on thermoregulation, one would think that a Kinglet should face real challenges of maintaining energy balance during the winter. In fact, how they maintain those hyperactive energy levels in the colder months, is still a mystery to researchers.
However, it has been found that Ruby-crowned Kinglets help reduce the extreme energy crunch imposed by fighting the effects of cold temperatures by huddling together at night or by sometimes sleeping in sheltered locations such as insulated squirrel or abandoned bird nests.
In addition, studies have shown that Kinglets possess a uniquely slow metabolic rate (for its size) and only require 10 calories a day to function which likely helps aid in the survival of this lovely species in even the chilliest of habitats.
Remarkable!

Photos by @sally_siko of @birdwatching_nc on my beloved beast, the mighty mirrorless @canonusa #R5