The Treecreeper – Certhia familiaris

The Treecreeper is a small, very active bird with a wingspan of around 20cm that lives in trees. It has a long, slender, downcurved bill, which it uses to pluck insects from underneath bark. It’s speckly brown above and mainly white below. Average lifespan expectancy in the wild is around 2 years.

Treecreepers stay within their small territories, most moving no more than 20km in their life and some sticking to a single tree!

Breeding begins in late March when monogamous pairs team up to build a nest in crevices building cup shaped nests made from grass and moss. The 5-6 eggs laid are incubated by just the female bird. Both parents feed the chicks for 14-16 days until they fledge .Treecreepers will produce a second brood before the breeding season ends in June.

Treecreepers primarily eat insects , spiders and insect larvae using their long, curved beaks to probe bark crevices as they spiral up tree trunks. In winter, when invertebrates are scarce, they supplement their diet with small seeds, especially from pine and spruce, and may also take fat balls or peanuts from feeders. When looking for food . Treecreepers always climb upwards on a trunk, often spiraling around the tree as they go. When they reach the top, they fly to the bottom of a new tree and start again.

Conservation status

Treecreepers rely heavily on mature trees full of cracks and crevices in which they can find insects. European populations have declined due to habitat fragmentation and changes in forestry practices leading to the loss of mature trees. They are very susceptible to severe winter weather especially frost, which may make increasingly unpredictable weather damaging to the population.

Classified in the UK as Green under the Birds of Conservation Concern 5: the Red List for Birds (2021). like most wildlife here in the UK the Treecreeper is protected in law by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

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