Eurasian treecreeper

Appearance

Similar in appearance, all treecreepers are small birds with streaked and spotted brown upperparts, rufous rumps and whitish underparts. They have long decurved bills, and long rigid tail feathers that provide support as they creep up tree trunks looking for insects.

The Eurasian treecreeper is 12.5 cm long and weighs 7.0–12.9 g . It has warm brown upperparts intricately patterned with black, buff and white, and a plain brown tail. Its belly, flanks and vent area are tinged with buff. 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 the most distinctive call is a penetrating ''tsree'', with a vibrato quality, sometimes repeated as a series of notes. The male's song begins with ''srrih, srrih'' followed in turn by a few twittering notes, a longer descending ripple, and a whistle that falls and then rises.

The range of the Eurasian treecreeper overlaps with that of several other treecreepers, which can present local identification problems. In Europe, the Eurasian treecreeper shares much of its range with the short-toed treecreeper. Compared to that species, it is whiter below, warmer and more spotted above, and has a whiter supercilium and slightly shorter bill. Visual identification, even in the hand, may be impossible for poorly marked birds. A singing treecreeper is usually identifiable, since short-toed treecreeper has a distinctive series of evenly spaced notes sounding quite different from the song of Eurasian treecreeper; however, both species have been known to sing the other's song.

Three Himalayan subspecies of Eurasian treecreeper are now sometimes given full species status as Hodgson's treecreeper, for example by BirdLife International, but if they are retained as subspecies of Eurasian, they have to be distinguished from three other South Asian treecreepers. The plain tail of Eurasian treecreeper differentiates it from bar-tailed treecreeper, which has a distinctive barred tail pattern, and its white throat is an obvious difference from brown-throated treecreeper. Rusty-flanked treecreeper is more difficult to separate from Eurasian, but has more contrasting cinnamon, rather than buff, flanks.

The North American brown creeper has never been recorded in Europe, but an autumn vagrant would be difficult to identify, since it would not be singing, and the American species' call is much like that of Eurasian treecreeper. In appearance, brown creeper is more like short-toed than Eurasian, but a vagrant might still not be possible to identify with certainty given the similarities between the three species.

Distribution

The Eurasian treecreeper is the most widespread member of its genus, breeding in temperate woodlands across Eurasia from Ireland to Japan. It prefers mature trees, and in most of Europe, where it shares its range with short-toed treecreeper, it tends to be found mainly in coniferous forest, especially spruce and fir. However, where it is the only treecreeper, as in European Russia, or the British Isles, it frequents broadleaved or mixed woodland in preference to conifers.

The Eurasian treecreeper breeds down to sea level in the north of its range, but tends to be a highland species further south. In the Pyrenees it breeds above 1,370 metres , in China from 400–2,100 metres and in southern Japan from 1,065–2,135 metres . The breeding areas have July isotherms between 14–16 °C and 23–24 °C .

The Eurasian treecreeper is non-migratory in the milder west and south of its breeding range, but some northern birds move south in winter, and individuals breeding on mountains may descend to a lower altitude in winter. Winter movements and post-breeding dispersal may lead to vagrancy outside the normal range. Wintering migrants of the Asian subspecies have been recorded in South Korea and China, and the nominate form has been recorded west of its breeding range as far as Orkney, Scotland. The Eurasian treecreeper has also occurred as a vagrant to the Channel Islands , Majorca and the Faroe Islands.

Status

This species has an extensive range of about 10 million km2 . It has a large population, including an estimated 11–20 million individuals in Europe alone. Population trends have not been quantified, but the species is not believed to approach the thresholds for the population decline criterion of the IUCN Red List . For these reasons, the species is evaluated as Least Concern.

It is common through much of its range, but in the northernmost areas it is rare, since it is vulnerable to hard winters, especially if its feeding is disrupted by an ice glaze on the trees or freezing rain. It is also uncommon in Turkey and the Caucasus. In the west of its range it has spread to the Outer Hebrides in Scotland, pushed further north in Norway, and first bred in the Netherlands in 1993.

Behavior

The Eurasian treecreeper has nine or more subspecies which breed in different parts of its range in temperate Eurasia. This species is found in woodlands of all kinds, but where it overlaps with the short-toed treecreeper in western Europe it is more likely to be found in coniferous forests or at higher altitudes. It nests in tree crevices 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.

Habitat

The Eurasian treecreeper is the most widespread member of its genus, breeding in temperate woodlands across Eurasia from Ireland to Japan. It prefers mature trees, and in most of Europe, where it shares its range with short-toed treecreeper, it tends to be found mainly in coniferous forest, especially spruce and fir. However, where it is the only treecreeper, as in European Russia, or the British Isles, it frequents broadleaved or mixed woodland in preference to conifers.

The Eurasian treecreeper breeds down to sea level in the north of its range, but tends to be a highland species further south. In the Pyrenees it breeds above 1,370 metres , in China from 400–2,100 metres and in southern Japan from 1,065–2,135 metres . The breeding areas have July isotherms between 14–16 °C and 23–24 °C .

The Eurasian treecreeper is non-migratory in the milder west and south of its breeding range, but some northern birds move south in winter, and individuals breeding on mountains may descend to a lower altitude in winter. Winter movements and post-breeding dispersal may lead to vagrancy outside the normal range. Wintering migrants of the Asian subspecies have been recorded in South Korea and China, and the nominate form has been recorded west of its breeding range as far as Orkney, Scotland. The Eurasian treecreeper has also occurred as a vagrant to the Channel Islands , Majorca and the Faroe Islands.

Reproduction

The Eurasian treecreeper breeds from the age of one year, nesting in tree crevices or behind bark flakes. Where present, the introduced North American giant sequoia is a favourite nesting tree, since a nest cavity can be easily hollowed out in its soft bark. Crevices in buildings or walls are sometimes used, and artificial nest boxes or flaps may be preferred in coniferous woodland. The nest has a base of twigs, pine needles, grass or bark, and a lining of finer material such as feathers, wool, moss, lichen or spider web.

In Europe, the typical clutch of five–six eggs is laid between March and June, but in Japan three–five eggs are laid from May to July. The eggs are white with very fine pinkish speckles mainly at the broad end, measure 16 x 12 mm and weigh 1.2 g of which 6% is shell. The eggs are incubated by the female alone for 13–17 days until the altricial downy chicks hatch; they are then fed by both parents, but brooded by the female alone, for a further 15–17 days to fledging. Juveniles return to the nest for a few nights after fledging. About 20% of pairs, mainly in the south and west, raise a second brood.

Predators of treecreeper nests and young include the great spotted woodpecker, red squirrel, and small mustelids, and predation is about three times higher in fragmented landscapes than in solid blocks of woodland . The predation rate increases with the amount of forest edge close to a nest site, and also the presence of nearby agricultural land, in both cases probably because of a higher degree of mustelid predation. This species is parasitised in the nest by the moorhen flea, ''Dasypsyllus gallinulae''. The juvenile survival rate of this species is unknown, but 47.7% of adults survive each year. The typical lifespan is two years, but the maximum recorded age is eight years and ten months.

Food

The Eurasian treecreeper typically seeks invertebrate food on tree trunks, starting near the tree base and working its way up using its stiff tail feathers for support. Unlike a nuthatch, it does not come down trees head first, but flies to the base of another nearby tree. It uses its long thin bill to extract insects and spiders from crevices in the bark. Although normally found on trees, it will occasionally hunt prey items on walls, bare ground, or amongst fallen pine needles, and may add some conifer seeds to its diet in the colder months.

The female Eurasian treecreeper forages primarily on the upper parts of the tree trunks, while the male uses the lower parts. A study in Finland found that if a male disappears, the unpaired female will forage at lower heights, spend less time on each tree and have shorter foraging bouts than a paired female.

This bird may sometimes join mixed-species feeding flocks in winter, but it does not appear to share the resources found by accompanying tits and goldcrests, and may just be benefiting from the extra vigilance of a flock. Wood ants share the same habitat as the treecreeper, and also feed on invertebrates on tree trunks. The Finnish researchers found that where the ants have been foraging, there are fewer arthropods, and male treecreepers spent a shorter time on spruce trunks visited by ants.