One day last week there was a thump on my study window, and a small bird fell onto the decking below. At first I thought it was a speckled young robin, but on looking closer I was very surprised to see it was a Treecreeper! This is a woodland bird, fairly commonly found in Oakley Wood but not Leamington Spa. I’ve never seen one before in my small suburban garden.
It lay stunned, or I feared, perhaps worse. After about 15 minutes it was fortunately still alive but looking distinctly unwell, so I decided to move it a little way to a less exposed position. It didn’t seem upset at being picked up and almost reluctant to leave my hand – perhaps it was enjoying the warmth.
Just look at those claws! They don’t look so obvious when the foot is placed normally. No wonder they can climb trees the way they do!
At that point I had to leave. When I returned after about an hour it was still there. That’s not good I thought, when, a moment later, it flew up on to the pergola above, and away.
Happy ending I hope.
Further reading…
In writing this post, I checked on the Internet whether it was correct to write “treecreeper” or “Treecreeper”. Wow, that opened a can of worms! If you want to while away a few hours whilst it’s raining outside, just search “should I capitalise bird names” and read on. The short answer is that ornithological authorities say you should, whereas everyone else disagrees.
One argument for doing so is that, for example, a greenish warbler could be a bird of the species Greenish Warbler (Phylloscopus trochiloides) or merely a warbler that is slightly green. An argument against doing this is that if you do, for consistency you should do it for every species in the biological kingdom, which we do not (for example, we say roe deer, not Roe deer or even Roe Deer).
Since this is an article specifically about birds, I decided on the capitalisation approach. But on this subject, I think all opinions are valid!
Chris