Brown Creeper

Brown Creeper typically display a unique method of foraging by spiraling upward along tree trunks, utilizing their curved claws and stiff tails for support. This vertical hopping technique is conducive to their insectivorous diet. Their downward movement, however, is less efficient, leading them to glide to the base of neighboring trees to resume foraging. During breeding, brown Creeper exhibit territorial singing and perform dynamic aerial spirals to attract mates, likely maintaining monogamous relationships. Post-fledging, both parents contribute to offspring care. Seasonal changes bring shifts in behavior; winter sees brown Creeper joining mixed-species foraging groups and engaging in communal roosting. They present a freeze response to predation threats and are known to actively join in mobbing predators.

Their breeding habitat is mature forests, especially conifers, in Canada, Alaska and the northeastern and western United States. They are permanent residents through much of their range; many northern birds migrate farther south to the United States. Brown creeper has occurred as a vagrant to Bermuda and Central America's mountains in Guatemala, Honduras and the northern cordillera of El Salvador. As a migratory species with a northern range, this species is a conceivable vagrant to western Europe. However, it is intermediate in its characteristics between common treecreeper and short-toed treecreeper, and has sometimes in the past been considered a subspecies of the former, although its closest relative seems to be the latter (Tietze et al., 2006). Since the two European treecreepers are themselves among the most difficult species on that continent to distinguish from each other, a brown creeper would probably not even be suspected, other than on a treeless western island, and would be difficult to verify even then. Brown Creepers prefer mature, moist, coniferous forests or mixed coniferous/deciduous forests. They are found in drier forests as well, including Engelman Spruce and larch forest in eastern Washington. They generally avoid the rainforest of the outer coast. While they generally nest in hardwoods, conifers are preferred for foraging.

As with many of Washington's birds, the Cascades divide this species into two subspecies. The species has declined in much of North America but appears to be doing well in Washington, with a small (not significant) increase on the state's breeding bird survey since 1966.