Golden-crowned Kinglet, Henne

On yet another walk into the Henne Preserve on an afternoon warm enough to shed my jacket, I had a few things in mind. The first was to check out a wild honeybee nest for signs of activity; the bees, apparently, have called it a year. Next was to scan the dead trees in the marsh for signs of Red-headed Woodpeckers, but if they're planning to return from wherever they went last May, they're certainly making themselves scarce. There were other birds, chiefly sparrows, that I wanted to find, but this guy, a delightful sprite called a Golden-crowned Kinglet, was not on my search list. I knew they were in the area, and while I'm pretty sure I've seen one or two in the trees around the house, the remarkably hardy visitors from the Great North Woods have not come within camera range, even when I'm toting the Sigma supertelephoto. Today, however, good luck was on my side and this gold-topped member of the mini-royalty buzzed out his proximity then dropped down the branches for a charming portrait.