Brown Creeper

Brown Creepers are tiny songbirds that have evolved to behave somewhat like woodpeckers. They crawl up tree trunks, all the while supported by their stiff tails. Erika calls them tree lice. They are not closely related to woodpeckers. They have three toes forward and one back, like most songbirds. Instead of pounding on tree trunks, they glean small arthropods from under the bark and among the other plants growing on the trees. The creepers were traditionally allied with the chickadees and nuthatches. Genetic studies suggest creepers and nuthatches are most closely related to wrens and gnatcatchers (Poulin et al. 2020). Eleven species of creepers are known, but only Brown Creepers are found in the New World. Erika and I found this creeper at the Nisqually national wildlife refuge on 2 November 2021.