Goldcrest (Regulus regulus)

Clickhere for the bird's sound.

A big picture of a small bird.

This is the smallest bird in Europe. It is about 9 centimeters long and weighs some 5 grams. So if you wanted to, you could send it by mail and pay the cheapest rate possible. Now I must strongly advise you not to do so as birds aren't things to send by mail. The Goldcrest has a close relative, the Firecrest (which I haven't seen in our garden yet), but it prefers pine trees and such. The Firecrest doesn't care about the environment really. In my garden the Goldcrest sometimes builds a nest in the coniferae.

It may be the smallest bird in Europe, but it certainly is a pretty one!

This bird belongs to the family of Kinglets or Goldcrests (Muscicapidae). It can be spotted in our garden infrequently, but probably is there all the time. It is a resident in our country. In Holland in winter lots of guests from Scandinavia arrive. The bird is 3,5" and weighs 5 grams. It lives in pinewoods, parks and larger gardens mostly. It eats insects and spiders. Compared to the male, the female shows a yellow stripe on the head. The nest is made in coniferae and pine trees from april till june. In it the bird deposits some eight to ten eggs. For such a small bird the breeding period of two weeks is considerably long. After hatching the young must be fed for some 16 days on end.