Golden-crowned Kinglets

While washing apples for making applesauce and cider today, I heard a series of high-pitched "tsee, tsee" calls faintly through the closed window in front of me. Fluttering among the mimosa branches were perhaps fifteen or so of these acrobatic creatures. Constantly in motion flipping upside down, hovering in mid-air, and hopping from branch to delicate branch, I'm quite surprised I caught this photo. It's interesting to note that the kinglet lays 5 to 10 eggs at a time in a tiny nest, stacking the eggs two deep. They feed primarily on insects such as bark beetles, scale insects, plant lice (really? plants have lice?), and the eggs of aphids. Hmmm. Eggs of aphids. Welcome Kinglets! All hail the Kinglets!

ps During the summer this year, those same mimosa trees behind the house were crawling with yellow jackets for weeks on end. Probably hundreds of them. Looking up the diet of the common yellow jacket, I discovered they love scale insects and the honeydew from aphids...