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Brown
Creeper
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Common Name: Brown
Creeper
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Certhiidae
Genus: Certhia
Species: Certhia americana
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Photo: Melissa Grippin |
TAXONOMY
The
Brown Creeper is the only member of the creeper family, Certhiidae, found in North America and one of the most
inconspicuous songbirds on the continent. Its Latin
name, Certhia americana, can be translated to creeper of
the Americas. The Brown Creeper is almost
indistinguishable from its Old World cousin, the
Eurasian Treecreeper (Certhia familiaris), and they were
long considered to be the same species. Its pattern of
brown feathers with hints of white camouflages the bird
with the bark of the tree making it very difficult to
detect. The Brown Creeper has a bold, brownish-white
supercilium, white under belly, and a down curved bill.
Both male and female species are very similar except
that the male on average has a slightly larger bill than the
female.
Photo: Melissa Grippin
HABITAT/DIET
Although the Brown Creeper is difficult to detect, its
distribution is widespread in coniferous and
coniferous-deciduous forests throughout North America
from Alaska and Canada south to northern Nicaragua. The
Brown Creeper is generally considered a year-round
resident throughout most of its range, however many
northern breeding populations migrate south as they
appear in locations outside of their breeding range.Its
diet consists mainly of a variety of insects and larvae,
and spiders and their eggs during the breeding season,
but during the winter, Brown Creepers will also feed on
a small amount of seeds and vegetable matter. This
creeper uses its slender, down curved bill to glean
invertebrates—mainly insects, spiders, and
pseudoscorpions—from furrows in the bark. Nestlings
presumably are only fed insects.
Photo: Melissa Grippin
BEHAVIOR
They forage on tree trunks
and branches, typically spiraling upwards from the bottom of a tree trunk,
and then flying down to the bottom of another tree. They “creep” slowly with
their body flattened against the bark, probing with their beak for insects.
Little information is known about the Brown Creepers mating behavior
however, because no cases polygamy has been observed, it is inferred that
the Brown Creeper in monogamous. The female is responsible for incubating
the 5-6 eggs she has laid for 14-17 days. Both sexes tend to the altricial
young for 13-17 days after they hatched. The young are immobile, helpless
and blind when they are born and need extra care from their parents. The pair bond is maintained at least up to
several weeks after the fledging, as both adults have been observed feeding
the fledglings.
Photo: Kyle Horton
WHERE TO FIND THEM
Brown Creepers are commonly
seen hopping head-first up vertical tree trunks while
foraging. Although the Brown Creeper is found in a
variety of forest habitats, it favors closed-canopy
forests with an abundance of large dead or dying trees
for nesting. It prefers large live trees for foraging. Some
spots that Brown Creepers are normally seen are the
Swallow Hollow Loop Trail at
Iroquois National Wildlife
Refuge or the
Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo.
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