0 the brown creeper (certhia americana), also known as the american tree creeper , is a small songbird , the only north american member of the treecreeper family certhiidae .
1 adults are brown on the upper parts with light spotting , resembling a piece of tree bark , with white underparts .
2  they have a long thin bill with a slight downward curve and a long stiff tail used for support as the bird creeps upwards .
3  the male creeper has a slightly larger bill than the female .
4  the brown creeper is 11.713.5 cm (4.65.3 in) long .
5 its voice includes single very high pitched , short , often insistent , piercing calls; see , or swee .
6  the song often has a cadence like; pee pee willow wee or see tidle swee , with notes similar to the calls .
7 their breeding habitat is mature forests , especially conifers , in canada , alaska and the northeastern and western united states .
8  they are permanent residents through much of their range; many northern birds migrate farther south to the united states .
9  brown creeper has occurred as a vagrant to bermuda and central america's mountains in guatemala , honduras and the northern cordillera of el salvador .
10  as a migratory species with a northern range , this species is a conceivable vagrant to western europe .
11  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 .
12 , 2006) .
13  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 .
14 brown creepers prefer mature , moist , coniferous forests or mixed coniferous/deciduous forests .
15  they are found in drier forests as well , including engelman spruce and larch forest in eastern washington .
16  they generally avoid the rainforest of the outer coast .
17  while they generally nest in hardwoods , conifers are preferred for foraging .
18 as with many of washington's birds , the cascades divided this species into two subspecies .
19  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.they forage on tree trunks and branches , typically spiraling upwards from the bottom of a tree trunk , and then flying down to the bottom of another tree .
20  they creep slowly with their body flattened against the bark , probing with their beak for insects .
21  they will rarely feed on the ground .
22  they mainly eat small arthropods found in the bark , but sometimes they will eat seeds in winter .
23 breeding season typically begins in april .
24  the female will make a partial cup nest either under a piece of bark partially detached from the tree , or in a tree cavity .
25  it will lay 3-7 eggs , and incubation lasts approximately two weeks .
26  both of the parents help feed the chicks .
27 the song is a short series of high-pitched sees .
28 as a migratory species with a northern range , this species is a conceivable vagrant to western europe .
29  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 .
30 , 2006) .
31 brown creepers prefer mature , moist , coniferous forests or mixed coniferous/ deciduous forests .
32  they are found in drier forests as well , including engelman spruce and larch forest in eastern washington .
33  they generally avoid the rainforest of the outer coast .
34  while they generally nest in hardwoods , conifers are preferred for foraging .
35  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 .
36 brown creeper has occurred as a vagrant to bermuda and central america's mountains in guatemala , honduras and the northern cordillera of el salvador .
37   image:brown creeper greatfalls .
38 jpg|a creeper at great falls , md , usa image:creeper .
39 ogv|brown creeper spiraling in biddeford , me file:brown creeper (certhia americana) .
