Goldcrest

The goldcrest is a very small passerine bird in the kinglet family. It has a plain face contrasting black irises and a bright head crest. Birds from the north and east of its breeding range migrate to winter further south.

About Goldcrest in brief

The goldcrest is a very small passerine bird in the kinglet family. It has a plain face contrasting black irises and a bright head crest. Birds from the north and east of its breeding range migrate to winter further south. It superficially resembles the common firecrest, which largely shares its European range, but the latter’s bronze shoulders and strong face pattern are distinctive. The song is a repetition of high thin notes, slightly higher-pitched than those of its relative. It breeds in coniferous woodland and gardens, building its compact, three-layered nest on a tree branch. Ten to twelve eggs are incubated by the female alone, and the chicks are fed by both parents; second broods are common. It may be killed by birds of prey or carry parasites, but its large range and population mean that it is not considered to present any significant conservation concerns. The ruby-crowned kinglet, an American Regulus species and a potential vagrant in Europe, could be more difficult to distinguish. Female ruby kinglets lack the red crown patch, but are larger in size compared with the bird. The typical call is a high, double cedar, repeated 5–7 times, repeated at 1–4 seconds, with all the notes at the same pitch. It sometimes has a more clipped ending, sometimes more rapidly ending, or is delivered more rapidly, ending more rapidly than the male. The crown of the head has black sides and a narrow black front, with a bright crest, yellow with an orange centre in the male, and entirely yellow in the female; the crest is erected in display, making the distinctive orange stripe of the male much more conspicuous.

It is similar in appearance to a warbler, with olive-green upper-parts, buff-white underparts, two white wing bars, and a conspicuous black irise. The small, thin bill is black and the legs are dark flesh-brown. The flight is distinctive; it consists of whirring wing-beats with occasional sudden changes of direction, Shorter flights while feeding are a mix of dashing and fluttering with frequent hovering. It moves restlessly among foliage, regularly creeping on branches and up and down trunks, and in winter it is often found with flocks of tits. The juvenile is similar to the adult, but has duller upper- parts and lacks the coloured crown. The male has a red crest without any yellow or black or black black border, like its Old World cousin. The female has a yellowish supercilium and pale crown stripe, so also shows a different head pattern. The yellow-browed warbler has a bright white eye-stripe, and similar head pattern, but it is larger in eyering and has an obvious whitish yellowish wing bars and similarly similar eyering, and similarly similarly larger in eye colour. The adult common fireCrest has a distinguishing face pattern showing a brightwhite superciliam and black eye- Stripe, so the juvenile usually shows enough of this face pattern to be readily distinguished from the plain-faced goldcest.

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