November is usually a dismal month, thanks to cooler temperatures, gray skies, rain, and mud.

But not this year. The first week of November was perfect -- bluebird skies and 70 degrees.

Despite spring-like temperatures, it was a tiny winter bird that captured my attention. The high-pitched voice was easy to distinguish from the incessant clucks of foraging chipmunks that dominate the forest floor this time of year. It was the call of a golden-crowned kinglet: "zee, zee, zee."

When I looked up, I spotted two tiny greenish birds hovering as they gleaned insects from a tree's evergreen needles. Kinglets weigh about 6 grams -- a bit less than a quarter-ounce. Golden-crowned and ruby-crowned kinglets are two of the tiniest songbirds in North America. Some pass through as they work their way south; others stay the winter. Kinglets are small, olive-colored birds that sometimes visit suet feeders. Both species are about 4 inches long. They have wing bars and their bellies are lighter than their bodies.

Look to their heads for differences between these two insectivorous songbirds. Black stripes border the fiery orange top of a male golden-crown's head. The female's crown is yellow. Both sexes also wear a broad white eyebrow stripe, so the head has a distinctly striped appearance.

Ruby-crowns are duller. Females lack the red hat that characterizes males, though the male's red feathers are seldom visible. Only when males get excited or agitated, perhaps by the presence of a hawk, do they erect these feathers and display the colorful ruby crown. The keys to recognizing ruby-crowns are the white eye-ring and the absence of stripes on the head.

Kinglets forage actively at the tips of branches and sometimes hover while gleaning small invertebrates and egg cases from hard-to-reach leaves and twigs. Seldom does a kinglet perch quietly to allow a birder a leisurely look. These very behaviors, coupled with the distinctive head markings, make identifying kinglets manageable.