Towheeblog

For only the third time in 18 months I saw a Brown Creeper in Clark Creek Park today. He was part of a small flock of tiny gleaners–pair of WB Nuthatch who will nest nearby, RC Kinglet who will return to the mountains this spring, CB Chickadee who’ll find a convenient grove of conifers. Often there’s a Downy or yellow-rump with such a group but I didn’t notice either.

Also in the park: kinglet & nuthatch. In the park the currants are in bloom (no pic), and nearby two plums are in flower.

Compare creeper and nuthatch–both generally feed on tree limbs and trunks. Nuthatches will take sunflower seeds and suet from garden feeders. I have never seen a creeper at a feeder though I would think they’d appreciate suet, being predators. A Google search did find some creepers on feeder images, from feederwatch.org so they should be legit. Google’s AI is not much of a birder, it offered up plenty of images of wrens on feeders for my specific “Brown Creeper” search!
Note in the final nuthatch image the head is turned so that its pointy tweezer beak can fit down into a bark crevice. Nuthatches have their beaks pointing down on trunk, outward from trunk on branches. The creeper always beaks upward on trunk, also outward on branch. The creeper will fly to its next tree and land near the bottom of the trunk most often. Its curved beak allows it to reach behnd layers of bark.

This attractive display was seen at Greer Park late this morning. Aren’t those white flags supposed to scare off grazing geese? If so, we have evidence that goose culture has evolved faster than that of park maintenance humans:

JUMP’N’SCRATCH

In the top two images I caught this foxy fellow as he is jumped up and scratching the litter backward with his feet.
In our garden starlings stop by but have not come down to feed in weeks. They clearly have somewhere they prefer, maybe something more open with longer lines-of-sight. Now they choose not to starlinger despite all the available food. I know they love suet…

AT FARVIEW WETLANDS

Coop watching the cattails (which are now shedding and spreading their feathery seeds). Canada Geese working the parking lot–are they training to be crows? French fries and bread crusts?

Clark Creek Park, Marion, Oregon, US
Mar 7, 2022
7 species

American Crow  X
Chestnut-backed Chickadee  1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet  1
White-breasted Nuthatch  2
Brown Creeper  1
American Robin  X
Dark-eyed Junco  3