Hey COBirders,
I have some observation data on winter Golden-crowned Kinglets, and thought I’d share, for comparison.
I had two Christmas Bird Count areas that I walked from the 80’s to the 00’s; one was Section 16/Upper Bear Creek and the Palmer Trail above Colorado Springs, and the other on the Pikes Peak Barr Trail from the base of the Manitou Incline up to about 9200’. Both areas were primarily through mixed conifers.
I walked the Section 16 area for the Colorado Springs Christmas Count circle annually from 1985-2012. On 20 of those days I counted GCKI’s, 113/20.
Average of 5.6 counted, and a Range from 0-16 seen/heard.
On Barr Trail for the Pikes Peak CBC I walked from 1986-2005, only missing 1999. I counted 112 in 19 years, average 5.4, Range 0-27. Most of the observed birds were in the first mile or two in Douglas Fir on the slopes above the parking area and Manitou Incline.
There is an observational bias for the COS-CBC after 2005, in that I suffered some sort of threshold hearing trauma and lost the high-frequency hearing that had up until then let me detect GCKI’s. So after that, if I didn’t see ‘em, I didn’t get ‘em! I noted “0” GCKI detected from 2005-2011. They were probably there, but I missed them. I missed them on my last PPCBC in 2005 as well.
So in conclusion, for December records of Golden-crowned Kinglets in conifer woodlands around 6500-8000’, I found them almost annually from 1985-2012, most years detecting from 3-5 birds.
Also, I banded a second-year GCKI in my yard in NW Colorado Springs 3/1/2018. Not that such is noteworthy, except that the Bird Banding Lab contacted me for confirmation, as that was the only banded Colorado GCKI that they had for winter records!
Hope that was helpful, have a good week,
Steve Brown
Colo Spgs