17 February 2025

Kinglet(s)

Sunday, November 1st, 2020
Townsend’s Solitaire, East Millcreek, Salt Lake City, Utah, 01 November 2020.
Townsend’s Solitaire.

This morning’s hike started out about like yesterday’s—quiet, the usual suspects, etc.—but on a lark I decided we’d do the loop up along the ridge overlooking Millcreek Canyon. It’d been a while.

Captain Jack was game, and the weather was cool (actually tied my sweatshirt around my waist once we got into the sunlight, as a T-shirt was plenty). Turned out to be a fruitful hike. For instance, up on the ridge, I’d stopped to watch a distant bird, when a Townsend’s Solitaire flitted up and perched on the tip of a juniper just below us.

(That’s often how it happens—and especially with solitaires.)

Then, descending down shady Coyote Canyon, I heard what sounded like a Golden-Crowned Kinglet among some conifers. Hadn’t educated myself on whether that species frequents this area, but this sounded exactly like the golden-crowned voices I knew from Maine. Ended up hearing it five or six times and was convinced that’s what it was—pending a little research.

Sure enough, they’re year-round residents of this area—yet this was the first I’d heard here. Maybe they stick to the upper coniferous regions or something.

(Spied a couple Ruby-crowned Kinglets also. A kinglet kind of day.)

Grandeur Peak Area List
Beginning at 8:15 a.m. (MST), I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.

1. Dark-eyed Junco
2. House Finch**
3. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay
4. Juniper Titmouse (v)
5. Spotted Towhee
6. Northern Flicker** (v)
7. Mountain Chickadee (v)
8. Pine Siskin (v)
9. Black-capped Chickadee
10. Black-billed Magpie*
11. Downy Woodpecker
12. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
13. Townsend’s Solitaire
14. Lesser Goldfinch (v)
15. Golden-crowned Kinglet (v)

(v) Voice only
*Also elsewhere
**Voice only elsewhere

Mammals

Red Squirrel (v)

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Bird Report is a (sometimes intermittent) record of the birds I encounter while hiking, see while driving, or spy outside my window. —Brian Willson



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