• Ruby the Ruby-Crowned Kinglet in Tootie’s Backyard.

Ruby

the Ruby-Crowned Kinglet

Ruby is a ruby-crowned kinglet who lives in Tootie’s backyard in late autumn, winter, and early spring.

Ruby spends her days foraging on the lower branches of the trees throughout Tootie’s backyard. You can identify Ruby by her olive-yellow complexion, black beak, dark eyes, yellow feet, and small size. Ruby is one of the smallest birds that hangs out in Tootie’s backyard, being even smaller than Charlene the Carolina chickadee.

Ruby’s brothers have a red patch of feathers on the top of their heads. They can raise the crest when threatened or territorial.

Ruby’s Home

Ruby was born in a globe-shaped nest of grasses, feathers, moss, and spiderwebs near the trunk of a spruce tree in Washington state. The nest was elastic, meaning that it stretched as her 11 brothers and sisters grew.

After Ruby hatched from a white egg with brown spots at the largest end, both her mom and dad fed her until she fully fledged or became old enough to fly and forage for her own food.

She left the old spruce tree that she was born in when she was two weeks old.

What are Ruby and her family doing when you see them in your yard?

Ruby’s Hobbies

Ruby is very small and fast. She likes to fly back and forth between low-hanging limbs on the bushes and trees in Tootie’s backyard, foraging for bugs to eat.

Ruby often sings as she forages to establish her territory, and is constantly on the move, rarely pausing to perch on branches. Her favorite tree to hang out in is the large oak tree in Tootie’s backyard.

When Ruby hangs out with other kinglets, they form a group that is called a castle, a court, a princedom, or a dynasty.

More often than foraging with members of her family, she’ll forage with her best friend, Tuffy.

What activities are the birds in your backyard doing?

Ruby’s Diet

Ruby is an insectivore. Her diet is mainly bugs: She loves to eat bugs like beetles, wasps, and spiders, and their eggs. Although she prefers bugs, she also occasionally forages for fruit and seeds. She especially likes poison oak berries.

Because she burns a lot of energy, Ruby needs a lot of protein and eats bugs more than any other food. Because Ruby eats bugs from the leaves and branches of trees, she is known as a foliage gleaner, but she will also capture bugs in mid-flight.

When the colder weather hits, she spends some time in the bushes, gathering berries.

In addition to the bugs and fruit, Ruby will occasionally eat flower nectar and tree sap.

What other animals do you know that are insectivores?

Learn more about Ruby.

Activities

Crossword


1. A bird that forages on the limbs and leaves of a tree.
2. Type of animal Ruby is.
3. How ruby crowned kinglets establish their territory.
4. Type of berries Ruby likes.
5. A bug that Ruby likes to eat.
6. Material Ruby built her nest from.
7. Color of Ruby's beak.
8. Where Ruby was born.
9. Name for a group of kinglets.
10. Something Ruby eats occasionally.