Golden-crowned Kinglets

Hardly a Life of Royalty by Karen Nichols Golden-crowned Kinglets are a mystery and a marvel of wintertime survival in the north woods. These grey and olive birds weigh only the mass of two pennies — just bigger than a Rufous Hummingbird. This species is Montana’s smallest permanent resident passerine and it eats insects all…

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Black-backed Woodpecker Picoides arcticus

by Sneed B. Collard III Scientific Name  Picus is Latin for woodpecker, from a legend in which the enchantress Circe turned Picus, the son of Saturn, into a woodpecker; -oides is Greek for “resembling,” so Picoides means “woodpecker-like”. The word arcticusis Latin for northern or arctic.  At first glance the newly burned forest looked devoid…

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