January 18, 2009 - Forest Creeper

Welcome to the Nature Notebook.

Rather like a forest spirit, the Brown Creeper floats from tree to tree, a brown leaf of a bird blown by the winter wind. Its high- pitched tseee tseee call sounds like the squeaking of a swaying tree. A creeper foraging for food spirals around the trunk of a tree starting near the bottom and making it way upward. Using its down-curved bill a creeper probes the cracks and crevices of bark for a winter fare of insect eggs and pupae. Ornithologist Arthur Bent noted that “the creeper’s success depends on painstaking scrutiny, thoroughness, and almost, it seems, conscientiousness.” Although many creepers migrate, a few spend the winter months in Pennsylvania forests. From time to time they might even visit a bird feeder for a few seeds or suet.

This is PPL's naturalist, Jon Beam, with the Nature Notebook for WVIA.