Four days remaining before the Bemidji Christmas Bird Count! Meet the charming and enigmatic Brown Creeper. Their excellent camouflage can make them difficult to spot in a forest, but they are much more common than folks realize. Their soft calls can betray their presence, but they are sure hard to track down. Sometimes mistaken for a species of Nuthatch, Brown Creepers work their way UP a tree while Nuthatches work their way DOWN. Cryptic and quiet, the Brown Creeper is easily overlooked in woodlands across the continent. The species is a forest generalist, but with an overall preference for northern and high-elevation woods. Many migrate well south in the winter, but others winter near or within the breeding grounds. Like many other northern forest birds, Audubon’s climate model indicates a significant shift and decrease in summer climate space—only 22% of current range will remain stable, with a concurrent 41% decrease in total summer area available. Suitable winter climate space may spread north into areas occupied by the species only in summer, but those modest gains in winter in the north are predicted to be insufficient in the face of larger losses of suitable climate space from the current summer range. (Kelly Colgan Azar/Flickr Creative Commons)
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 15:39:26 +0000
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