Newscasts, online weather reports, and this publication all reported and were predicting extremely cold temperatures and wind chills the past few weeks. There were reminders of some dangerous wind chills and even alerts to be aware of your pet’s safety when they were outdoors.

Not trying to offend anyone, but wow, it is cold, it is winter, and most of us have a warm abode to retreat to, and usually plenty of outer wear to insulate from those elements. Don’t get me wrong, an 8- or 10-degree morning is not my favorite, but I don’t live outside in those conditions.

Huddled tightly against another kinglet, probably in a dense evergreen, a golden-crowned kinglet weighing less than 2 pennies (0.19 ounces) is comfortable. They must brave some extreme conditions, and since I see kinglets in the Times News region each winter, the birds are surviving.

So how does a golden-crowned kinglet survive? First, most of the kinglets migrated south from their Canadian breeding areas, finding the “warmth” of this region more hospitable. Secondly, their winter feather mass is about 50% more than in summer. And they eat and eat and eat.

To sustain their body temperature around 103 degrees F they must consume about their own weight in food each day. Their daily routine does not include recliner time watching TV. The golden crowns hustle from tree to tree scouring the bark crevices and beneath needles or tree limbs looking for overwintering insect eggs, dormant spiders and insects to fuel them. These are high energy sources, and apparently, they find enough.

This “wee bird” is about 3¼ inches in size. Look carefully for them on your morning winter nature walk. I see most of them in hemlock stands or in mixed forests with hemlocks. If close enough, you might hear a faint twitter as they forage. They typically, hummingbird-like, hover at a hemlock branch and then deftly pluck a food morsel. I find them difficult to photograph, not necessarily because of their fear of me, but because of their nearly constant activity. They are so active.

To locate them, I usually look for or listen for black-capped chickadees. The chickadees are a bit more vocal. Often, I find little groups of chickadees, golden crowned kinglets, tufted titmice, brown creepers and downy woodpeckers foraging together. The brown creepers are also tiny, weighing in at 0.2 to 0.3 ounces, and they somehow survive harsh winter conditions as well.

The black-capped chickadees are not big birds either, at 4½ inches and not much heavier. They too are one of the “wee birds.” Chickadees are more common and visible because they eat more seeds than the kinglets. You may have chickadees visiting your sunflower feeders or suet. Chickadees, and the kinglets, use three other survival techniques.

At night, the longest part of the winter 24-hour period, both of these species drop their body temperatures. They also shiver, which helps generate heat to make it through below-zero temps. And finally, something you have probably observed, they fluff their feathers. By fluffing, the bird is able to trap a little insulating air closer to their body. We, by the way, fluff our feathers, too. When you’re cold and get “goose bumps,” it is our ancestral way of trapping heat as well.

Well, get out there, enjoy your “goose bumps” and observe some of those “wee birds.”

Test Your Outdoor Knowledge: True/False In about one month, both great horned owls and bald eagles will be incubating their eggs.

Last Week’s Trivia Answer: Snipe, sandhill cranes and even a blue goose could be seen in our region. Whooping cranes would not.

Contact Barry Reed at breed71@gmail.com.