Does anybody know? It seems like with almost 70k observations more would occur in summer than do. Is it because there are just less people iNatting in northern lattitudes?
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Interesting. In my area (New Mexico) this kinglet summers, winters, and is a year-round resident in some places. But I rarely see it in summer, or at least don’t get photos of it. It’s a common winter bird in lower elevation woods and riparian areas and almost all my encounters are during that season. Perhaps it’s just a difficult bird to photo on its nesting grounds at higher latitudes and elevations. I wonder what eBird data show.
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My guess is that they’re extremely cautious and quiet while nesting and raising young. Their nesting period is roughly May through July, and a high proportion of their iNat observations during July and August are of juveniles.
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Interesting question! It spurred me to check my own observation breakdown by month (California) and found that out of my 83 obs:
January - 30
Feb - 6
March - 4
April - 1
May, June, July, Aug, Sept - 0
Oct - 13
Nov - 19
Dec - 10
According to the audubon society page about them, they nest very high up in large conifers, in northern / mountainous areas, and they tend to restrict their foraging to the treetops during nesting season. So I imagine it’s a combination of fewer observers in those areas, plus the birds being high up and difficult to spot through dense foliage.
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Based on my work experience in the boreal forest in far northern Ontario I can tell you there are a whole lot of RCKI up there, but very few people to observe them. Then they come pouring back through southern Ontario in October and that’s when most people see them.
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I’ll have to strain my neck some this summer when I’m up in the New Mexico mountains and see if I can spot this bird in the tall conifers. Or learn its song.
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In the summer, Ruby-crowned Kinglet are primarily detected by sound rather than sight due to their secretive habits during the nesting season. Most iNat observations are photos, not recordings.
Also, its nesting habitat is generally pretty remote.
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Yes, as folks have said, if you put a small, fast-moving bird really high up with a lot of leaves between it and the ground, not many people will see it. In the winter, they forage lower, and without the leaves in the trees they are much easier to spot.
What hasn’t come yet is that far fewer people can identify birds by ear than by sight, and there are other platforms that have better tools for processing audio recordings, so not as many people are uploading them here.
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RCKI has a pretty distinctive call, which sounds like a typewriter. However, that mnemonic may not be useful for much longer. I remember telling it to a bunch of my summer campers and they had no idea what a typewriter sounded like…
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My hunch is more leaves on trees combined with being very secretive.
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Interesting you say that - I am very familiar with RCKI’s calls but I don’t know which one you’re talking about. I strongly suspect that this would be caused a lack of typewriter knowledge rather than the other way around…
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Hey kids, you want to know what the now-extinct typewriter sounded like? Listen to this kinglet’s call.
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It never sounded much like a typewriter to me. Some bird guides transliterate it as “ji-dit,” which seems pretty accurate.
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