Wee three kings

We are all familiar with the diminutive wren, yet its tiny fellow kinglets the goldcrest and firecrest are, perhaps understandably, often overlooked. Ian Morton studies our smallest birds

- Ian Morton

THE tiny goldcrest has accrued several names over time. Unable to comprehend that such a small bird could cross the North Sea unaided when migrating from Scandinavia and northern Europe, medieval ornithologists supposed that it hitched a lift on the backs of sturdier flyers and dubbed it the ‘woodcock pilot’. To East Anglian fishermen, in whose rigging it often paused for a rest before continuing, it was the ‘herring spink’ or ‘lot-o’erseas’. Folk along the east coast have found the arriving goldcrest too exhausted to be afraid of people. There have been instances of the little bird actually settling on them.

It is our smallest bird, yet, in the general public perception, this distinction has been usurped by the wren (‘I am wren, hear me roar’, February 28, 2018). There isn’t much in it, but, at the bottom of the scale, a little means a lot. The goldcrest weighs 5g–6g (about 0.2oz), the wren 7g–12g (0.2oz–0.4oz). The goldcrest’s length is 9cm (3.5in), the wren’s 8cm–12cm (3in–5in)—the measurements, as you can see, almost too small to convert meaningfully into Imperial. The wren, at its largest in Scotland, where it faces harsher winters, is certainly the commonest and most vociferous for its size and its song scores heavily over the goldcrest, the utterances of which are so slight and high-pitched that many human ears can’t pick them up. The goldcrest is not only our smallest bird, but possibly our quietest.