Brown creeper singing song of springtime

Winter is hanging on with a vengeance, I thought, as I was buffeted by winds that were lowering the temperature to 5 above zero predicted for that night. The late afternoon sunlight glittered across the ice-covered path.

I didn’t expect to find any of our late winter migrants yet. I was even skeptical of finding any signs of awakening life and increased activity on such a day as this – but I did.

Soon, I heard soft, lisping calls coming from the tall white pines on either side of the path. I also recognized the voices of chickadees, and surmised that the other birds I was hearing were golden-crowned kinglets, for these two often forage together. I soon realized that it was the voice of the brown creeper, rather than that of the kinglets, that I was hearing. Not only did I hear its call note, but more importantly, I heard its spring song. This was the first time that I had been able to match the bird to the song, and I had always attributed the high, delicate “see-ti-wee-tu-wee” to one of the warblers.

The brown creeper is a bird belonging to the family Certhiidae. It is about the size of the white-breasted nuthatch, but, unlike the nuthatch which has a short, rounded tail, the creeper has a longer tail that is forked and stiff, much like a woodpecker’s. This aids the bird as it forages on the trunks of trees for insects, as woodpeckers do.

Another unique feature of this bird is its beak, which is long, slender and slightly curved downward, or decurved. This adaptation allows the bird to probe easily around and underneath the bark for food. As its name suggests, the bird is brown with white, gray and buff streaking on its back, and white below. It has a white stripe above its eye. This coloration allows it to blend perfectly with the bark of the tree. If threatened by a predator, it will spread its wings and freeze against the tree, effectively camouflaging itself.

This endearing little bird has an interesting foraging strategy. Starting at the base of a tree, it spirals up the trunk searching for food; once it gets to the top, it will fly to the base of another tree and start again. It does not climb headfirst down a tree like a nuthatch.

Chris Corio is a volunteer for Fields Pond Nature Center. She can be reached at fieldspond@juno.com.