WINTER VISITORS 



BROWN CREEPER 



A regular winter visitor is this busy worker, 

 moth-like in his quiet ways and in the velvet 

 softness of his mottled markings who never in 

 daylight ceases his searching scrutiny of the 

 bark of trees. How many small insects he picks 

 up, what quantities of tiny eggs and larvae, who 

 can say! His bright eyes seem to see nothing 

 farther away than the trunk to which he clings; 

 his sharp beak, curved like a surgeon's needle, 

 goes into the smallest cranny; his claws bear him 

 steadily up the bole, helped by the brace of the 

 stiff, pointed tail feathers. So closely is the 

 body flattened that it seems like a bit of the bark 

 itself that is moving, — moving upward, not 

 down, for, unlike the Nuthatch, the Brown 

 Creeper works from the roots up. Unlike the 

 Nuthatch again, he seems to pay little attention 

 to even the larger boughs, and never descends 

 to the ground or mingles with other birds in 

 feeding. 



Just a solitary worker, colorless, and song- 

 less, but so busy as to be happy among us during 

 all the frozen months; and no doubt the pretty 

 nest which he hides behind a piece of loosened 



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