On my Dogtown hike last Sunday, I heard a song that I have never heard before. I’ve been birding for quite a while and can recognize a couple hundred birds calls without difficulty. In my birding semi-retirement I usually hear a song and think to myself, “I should know what that is.” But this time, I thought, “I have never heard a song like that, what is it?!?”
It took me a while to find the little devil. It has a very high frequency song that is difficult to locate. But I managed to triangulate it and narrowed it down to a large maple tree. Then I found out another reason I was having a tough time finding it. There were two or three singing in a bout a 100 yard radius.
The second problem that I had was that it is very well camouflaged. Have you spotted it yet?
There it is! The Brown Creeper makes a living by looking for tasty morsels in the nooks and crannies within the bark of trees. If you care to hear the song of the Brown Creeper, check out the recording at the Cornell Ornithology Lab. The first part of the recording is what I heard. The second part, the “tsee-tsee” call is what I’m used to hearing.
Oh, by the way, these are the first half decent pictures I’ve ever gotten of Brown Creepers. It isn’t only that they are well camouflaged, they are very active in their hunt for food and they are usually found in low light forest conditions.
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4 comments:
Great Capture Steve, they are tough to track down
He was indeed difficult to locate. Birds give me fits when trying to find and photograph them. To identify them by their song, I'll not even try. I admire those who can though.
Nice pictures of them Steve. I see one now and then on a tree but they are so small and hard to spot that I've never taken a photo of one.
Hahaha...loved playing where's Waldo with the first photo. I found him! The second photo is wonderful. They are hard to photograph!!
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