Brown Creeper

Description:

tiny birds with mottled feathers that make them nearly indistinguishable from a piece of bark when viewed at a distance. They have dark-brown upperparts that are heavily streaked with white on the head, back, scapulars (feathers covering the shoulder), and wings. They have a distinctive brown stripe through their eye and a white stripe above it. The underparts are white with red/brown lightly mixed in. They have a long, stiff tail with feathers that are used as props to help the birds move up and around the trunk of a tree. Brown creepers are 11.7 to 13.5 cm long and weigh 7.2 to 9.9 g. Male and female brown creepers are very similar in appearance

Habitat:

the only treecreepers in North America. They are found throughout North America from Canada and Alaska to as far south as northern Nicaragua. In Alaska and Canada, brown creepers generally breed along the coast. In British Columbia, brown creepers breed along the western coast and through the central and southern interior. Limited surveys have been done to determine the northern limits of brown creepers. In the western United States, brown creepers are found throughout forested areas of the Rocky Mountains in western Washington, Oregon and the northern mountains of California. live in coniferous forests and mixed coniferous-deciduous forests. They require large trees (dead or alive) for foraging and nesting. In the Pacific Northwest, brown creepers also live in coniferous forests but avoid the forests of the Olympics where trees are much larger and more spread apart. In the Rocky Mountains, brown creepers are found more in older red cedars, spruce-fir, and mixed conifer rather than in younger forests.

Notes:

maximum recorded age for a banded brown creeper was 4 years, 7 months. However, little is actually known about the lifespan/longevity of brown creepers All information courtesy of Animal Diversity Web (see references)