Brown Creeper

Is the bark on that tree moving?

Brown Creepers can be hard to spot sometimes and only their motion can give them away. They are the only North American treecreeper and are year-round residents in the northeastern US, Canada and the western US Mountain States. Some do migrate into the central and southern US in the winter. They are small, about 5 inches (13 cm) in length.

They fly to the base of a tree and then move up the tree. They will move along the underside of limbs as well. They are searching for small insects and spiders that are hidden in the bark of the tree.

Nuthatches also hunt for insects in tree bark, but they start at the top of the tree and work down, going head first. I would love to get a photograph of these two birds passing each other as they head in opposite directions.