Life and Wildlife along the Little Buffalo River

Photographed this dimmunitive bird, last week, working around the base of a tree holding a suet feeder looking for seed scraps. Iv’e seen them before but forgot just how small they are. At first I throught it was a mouse but after further inspection I realized it was a Brown Creeper. I believe only the Ruby Throated Hummingbird is smaller in Arkansas: taken with a Canon 7D with a Canon EF300 f/2.8 IS lens and a 1.4 TC:

• Size & Shape

  Brown Creepers are tiny yet lanky songbirds. They have long, spine-tipped tails, slim bodies, and slender, decurved bills.

• Color Pattern

  Streaked brown and buff above, with their white underparts usually hidden against a tree trunk, Brown Creepers blend easily into bark. Their brownish heads show a broad, buffy stripe over the eye (supercilium).

• Behavior

  Brown Creepers search for small insects and spiders by hitching upward in a spiral around tree trunks and limbs. They move with short, jerky motions using their stiff tails for support. To move to a new tree, they fly weakly to its base and resume climbing up. Brown Creepers sing a high, warbling song; they also give a high, wavering call note that sounds similar to that of a Golden-crowned Kinglet.

• Habitat

  Brown Creepers breed primarily in mature evergreen or mixed evergreen-deciduous forests. You can find them at many elevations, even as high as 11,000 feet at treeline in the West. In the winter season, the species moves into a broader variety of forests and becomes much easier to find in deciduous woodlands.

Brown Creeper