what is the closest relative to the flamecrest common firecrest
BIRD FAMILIES OF THE Globe
a web folio by Don Roberson
| KINGLETS Regulidae |
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 Kinglets are a small family of very small-scale arboreal birds in the Northern Hemisphere. It is now undisputed that these tiny sprites deserve family status, as they are an aboriginal lineage, only their truthful identify in the avian tree of life is nevertheless uncertain. As a group they are rather piece of cake to recognize: very tiny, flitty, insect-gleaners of coniferous forests, all having a colorful crown design. The common and widespread example in North America is Ruby-crowned Kinglet (left and below) which leaves its summer home in coniferous forests to spread widely in all sorts of woodlands in the lowlands for winter. This is the plainest of the kinglets since its reddish-red crown of the male is almost ever hidden (but look for information technology in the bathing sequence below). However, when the crest is erected, it is striking and dramatic. The first Ruddy-crowned Kinglet that I always saw — dorsum on Christmas Day 1965 — had its crest up and was very agitated, full of "personality." It fabricated a large impression on me, then a 13-yr-former child. |
| This male Ruby-crowned Kinglet (below) has found a small-scale mud puddle in the trail at Andrew Molera SP, California, suitable for bathing. Note the very thin black legs (with xanthous feet, in the perched shot above); the slim bill: and the black bar on the secondaries below the lower white wingbar (white tips to greater coverts). |
| The Sometime Earth species are tiny with colorful caput patterns, every bit illustrated by their English names: Goldcrest R. regulus (entire Palearctic), Common Firecrest R. ignicapillus (westward. Palearctic), Madeira Firecrest R. madeirensis, and Flamecrest R. goodfellowi (endemic to Taiwan). [Orangecrest R. (r.) teneriffae (Canary Is., sometimes called Canary Island Kinglet), is sometimes split from Goldcrest.] The Palearctic version of Golden-crowned Kinglet is Goldcrest (male below left © Graham Catley). Annotation the brilliant orange stripe within the larger yellow crown stripe in this male person. Firecrest (below correct it a another great photo © G. Catley), has a more complex facial pattern that is actually quite lovely. And beneath those two pics is a fabulous flight shot of female Goldcrest, also © Graham Catley. |
| It is sure fun to look at some of these photos, because in the field these birds seem to be always moving and difficult to encounter well. In western North America, particularly west of the Sierra Nevada and Cascades from California n to British Columbia, there is a pregnant field identification problem between Ruby-crowned Kinglet (a wintertime visitor to the lowlands) and Hutton's Vireo Vireo huttoni (a resident of oak and oak/pino wood). Even get-go birders should acquire to separate these 2 common but similar species. I take a now-somewhat-dated page on the Identification of Hutton's Vireo v. Blood-red-crowned Kinglet. Martens & Päckert (2006) explain that the very small size of these passerines is adaptive, "allowing regulids to exploit a special foraging niche on the thinnest of branches and in outermost canopies. In the example of those species which specialize on conifers, small size is peculiarly advantageous because it lets them manoeuvre in the small species between needles, or fifty-fifty perch on the needles themselves." |
| All of that occurred before the dramatic changes wrought exist more straight mtDNA and (later) nuclear Dna evidence, which led to the "Pause-up of the Old Earth Warblers" in the early 21st century. We now know that they are an ancient lineage — this was clear enough that past the time the applicable volume of the Handbook of the Birds of the World was published (Martens & Päckert (2006), the editors had inverse their minds and elevated this minor group to full Family status. Where they should be placed in the one thousand scheme of things is, yet, however uncertain. They are patently a very early offshoot in the Muscicapoidea [eastward.one thousand., Barker et al. (2004), Treplin et al. (2008)] but whether they are closest to creepers or wrens or waxwings of something else is still a mystery. Simply allow'south non worry about that too much. Let'south simply marvel at some other Graham Catley photo — a Common Firecrest giving the states a great look at that peppery crown! |
| Photos: The initial Ruby-crowned Kinglet Regulus calendula was at Pacific Grove, California, on 5 Oct 2005; the puddle-bathing male was near the Large Sur R. oral cavity, Monterey Co., California, on 23 November 2012. The female person Golden-crowned Kinglet R. satrapa was at Pt. Reyes Nat'l Seashore, California, on 11 Oct 2008. Graham Catley photographed the European species in Lincolnshire, Great britain: male Goldcrest R. regulus on 11 Dec 2008 and female person in flying on 22 Oct 2012, and the Common Firecrest R. ignicapillus on, respectively, 2 Apr 2011 and xx Mar 2011. Photos © Don Roberson except the Goldcrests and Firecrests © Graham Catley, and used with permission; all rights reserved. Graham Catley has a lively blog with many groovy bird photos. Bibliographic notation: There is no "family book" per se, but an introduction to this family, with some fine photos, is Martens & Päckert (2006). Literature cited:
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All six kinglets are in the genus Regulus. The other Due north American species is Golden-crowned Kinglet, a very hard bird to meet well since it sticks to the tops of dumbo conifers, simply here's a shot of a migrant at Pt. Reyes, California (left). Aureate-crowned Kinglet has an extremely loftier-pitched call that, once learned, allows one to document their presence much more oftentimes. The male has lovely cherry stripe inside the yellow crown stripe if you can ever see one decently. Females, similar this, take simply a yellow crown stripe. 
Kinglets are traditionally treated every bit a subfamily of the Sylviidae (Former Globe warblers; Voous 1977, Urban et al. 1997), which was even the tentative plan for the Handbook of the Birds of the Earth project when it began. Some authors placed it every bit office of a broader Muscicapidae (Mayr & Amadon 1951, A.O.U. 1983) while Sibley & Monroe (1990) noted that "molecular data support ranking this group as a family unit of uncertain affinities (Sibley & Ahlquist 1990)" and placed them between the Bulbuls and Old World warblers.all text & photos © Don Roberson, except as otherwise indicated; all rights reserved
Source: http://creagrus.home.montereybay.com/kinglets.html
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