Brown Creeper, getting up a tree
It was a great day of looking for birds during spring migration in gorgeous weather but I need some time to go through all of the images I shot this afternoon in the Green Island Wetlands. Instead a photo from last weekend is posted today. If you are a follower of my blog, you may know from previous articles in the past that I’m really excited about the presence of two Brown Creepers here in our woods. For my German friends, it is a cousin of the ”Baumläufer”, a tiny woodland bird that spirals up tree trunks in search for insects and their larvas.
They glean, probe, and peck at the trunk with their long, down-curved bills. Starting near the bottom of the trunk, they work their way up the tree to within several feet of the top, then fly to the bottom of another tree (or sometimes the same one) to begin again.
Source: Cornell, All about birds https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Brown_Creeper/lifehistory#food
The Brown Creeper you see here didn’t just hop up the tree trunk but used its wings to get to a higher spot. Getting any image of these very fast moving birds is already a reward, but catching them in flight is just priceless in my books…