On a recent walk through Central Park we were distracted, charmed, and entertained by a Golden-crowned Kinglet Regulus satrapa that was exploring each and every part of a fence for bugs, it was rather simple to figure out that if we placed ourselves ahead of it along the fence it was foraging on it would come right past, so we did and it did, within inches. Then we moved past the kinglet and waited again, and then we did it again, and again. It was a game one could never grow tired of simply because watching a four-inch bird that sometimes hangs upside-down, sometimes hover-gleans, and is completely unconcerned about one’s presence is amazing.





Corey is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.