Species Profile: Brown Creeper The Brown Creeper (Certhia americana) derives its common name from the way it stealthily creeps up the trunks of trees in search of insects. My first encounter with this curious passerine (or perching bird) occurred while I was doing fieldwork in Backus Woods of southern Ontario. Hearing a faint tapping from a dead tree above my head I looked up expecting to see a woodpecker. Instead, I was greeted by the sight of a diminutive brown bird which, using its stiff tail feathers as a crutch, spiralled in a jerky motion up the tree. The creeper's ascension of the trunk immediately distinguished it from a nuthatch, which would spiral down the tree. Another Brown Creeper dead give-away was the long, thin, decurved bill. As I watched, the creeper used this bill, and an equally long and narrow tongue, to extract insects from the tree's bark. When it had inched its way to the top the bird fluttered to the base of another tree and began another spiral rise. After a while the first creeper was joined by a second. In the fading light of the setting sun I gazed at the two silhouetted birds slow-dancing up the tree in search of their evening meal. Brown Creepers are inconspicuous but locally common birds in eastern North America all the way south to Nicaragua. (They also breed as far west as Alaska.) Both males and females have brown upperparts mottled with grey, buff and white. Their underparts are white and tail feathers are long and sharply pointed. The white stripe (or supercilium) over the eye and the bright reddish-brown tail coverts are good identification markers. Keen eyes can spot camouflaged creepers at home in dense coniferous, deciduous and mixed forest habitats as well as wooded swamps. During migration and in the winter Brown Creepers can also be found in open woodlands, parks or backyards. The bird only has one habitat requirement: standing dead trees with loose bark. During the breeding season the male Brown Creeper sings a sweet descending warble to attract a mate. After the pairing, the female constructs a nest behind a loose slab of bark on the trunk of a living, dead or dying tree. When that is not available she uses natural openings such as knotholes or old woodpecker cavities. Her eggs are white, smooth and non-glossy, and each has a ring of fine pink or reddish-brown speckles at the large end. She lays four to six small (15 x 12mm) eggs and will incubate them for 14-17 days. After hatching the chicks stay in the nest for 13-16 days being fed by both parents. Their first flight (or fledging) can be quite an undertaking since Brown Creeper nests are found in the middle to high canopy five to 15 metres above the ground! After the chicks have fledged both parents continue to feed them for another two weeks. Brown Creepers are being adversely affected by the destruction of forested wetlands and poor forest management practices which remove dead trees from the woods. They also fall victim to the lights of tall buildings; they are among the 10 most common species found by FLAP in Toronto's streets. No one knows the urban story of the Brown Creeper better than Michael Mesure who has found countless creepers tucked into downtown nooks and crannies, or clinging to the vertical faces of the towers. On one morning during autumn migration Michael was training a volunteer. They had seen no birds and were preparing to head home. Suddenly a Brown Creeper appeared "out of nowhere" and landed on top of Michael's head! Accustomed to strange encounters of the avian kind, Mike just reached up, and gently pulled the bird out of his hair. The creeper blinked up at him as Michael quickly examined him, pronounced him to be in good health and popped him into a paper bag. A brief trip by car to the Humber Marshes and the creeper was released to continue his journey south under his own power. A happy conclusion to this story, but others have ended tragically. Brown Creepers survive their nasty encounters with glowing city lights more often than many other species but they should not be hitting the buildings at all. These charming little birds are one more reason to turn the lights out! Deborah Buehler Deborah is completing an undergraduate degree in Biology and Psychology at York University and hopes to pursue her interest in animal behaviour at the graduate level. She has spent the last two summers studying the breeding behaviour of birds.