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Winter flocks of chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, Downy Woodpeckers and, on occasion, kinglets often contain a creeper or two. This “flock feeding” behavior benefits members of the foraging group for if one bird finds food, the others can profit from it. Hungry hawks are often confused by the number of individuals in a flock to the point that they cannot single out an individual for a meal.
Also, the sharp eyes of one bird that perceives a predator can result in an alert signal to the whole flock. All then hide, scatter or freeze into immobility and escape the hungry hawk. A suddenly still Brown Creeper blends into the textured trunk of a tree trunk so perfectly as to become invisible.
Friends who have had this little bird as a regular visitor to the bird feeder have spread a mixture of peanut butter, cornmeal and rendered fat from suet or bacon grease on a tree trunk. There the creeper found the delicacy and returned on a regular basis for more. I have also heard reports of the creeper turning up to pick at a suet feeder.
Lee Trott adds canned dog food to her winter mixture for birds. This concoction we call “bird pudding” could also be spread on a tree trunk. It might attract the Brown Creeper; it would also be welcomed by woodpeckers. I hesitate to add that the squirrel might also find it very much to his liking.
I hope the lady at the Symposium who wanted more information on the Brown Creeper reads this. It was a pleasure to think and write about the “little brown bird.”
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