Eurasian treecreeper

The Eurasian treecreeper is the only living member of its genus. It has a curved bill, patterned brown upperparts, whitish underparts and a plain brown tail. The bird is solitary in winter, but may form communal roosts in cold weather.

About Eurasian treecreeper in brief

The Eurasian treecreeper is the only living member of its genus. It has a curved bill, patterned brown upperparts, whitish underparts and a plain brown tail. It is insectivorous and climbs up tree trunks like a mouse, to search for insects which it picks from crevices in the bark with its fine curved bill. The bird is solitary in winter, but may form communal roosts in cold weather. Three Himalayan subspecies are now sometimes given full species status as Hodgson’s tree creeper, for example by BirdLife International. The North American species has never been recorded in Europe, but an autumn vagrant would be difficult to identify since it would not be singing and the call is much like that of Eurasian. The species was first described by Linnaeus in 1758, but its current scientific name is under his natura naturae Systema 1758-1758. It can be most easily distinguished from the similar short-toed treecreesper, which shares much of its European range, by its different song. It nests in tree crevice or behind bark flakes, and favours introduced giant sequoia as nest sites where they are available. The female typically lays five or six pink-speckled white eggs in the lined nest, but eggs and chicks are vulnerable to attack by woodpeckers and mammals, including squirrels.

The sexes are similar, but the juvenile has duller upperparts than the adult, and its underparts are dull white with dark fine spotting on the flanks. The contact call is a very quiet, thin and high-pitched sit, but a penetrating tsree, with a vibrato quality, sometimes repeated as a series of notes. The Eurasian TreecreePer is 12. 5 cm long and weighs 7. 0–12. 9 g. It has warm brown upper parts intricately patterned with black, buff and white, and aplain brown tail, which provides support as it creeps up trunks looking for insects. In Europe, it is more likely to be found in coniferous forests or at higher altitudes, but where it overlaps with the short- toed treeCreeper in western Europe it is also found in woodlands of all kinds. It might not be possible to identify the species with certainty given the similarities between the three subspecies, but it might still be possible with certainty to give it a full species name. Compared to that species it is whiter below, warmer and more spotted above, and has a whiter supercilium and slightly shorter bill.

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