River Walk

My new pup Quill and I have been spending our lunch time walking along the Yellowstone River for the past couple of weeks. Quill gets his mid-day meal and a good walk, and I get a few minutes of away-from-the-desk therapy. We wander along the bank of the river, or through the Cottonwoods along the trails of a park near my office looking for whatever crosses our path. Sometimes it is beautiful patterns in the ice along the river, other times it is just a few moments of new experiences for a puppy. Most of our short journeys have been relatively devoid of birds except for the usual Common Goldeneyes on the river and an occasional Bald Eagle cruising along the channel. However last week we managed to find ourselves in the middle of a small flock of Black-capped Chickadees, a Brown Creeper, and a White-breasted Nuthatch. I always enjoy watching creepers and nuthatches work their way up and down tree trunks, prying little insects out from the cracks and crevices of the bark. They are always a challenge to photograph because most of the time you see only the back of the bird as they hunt the bark for food.

 Sometimes you can catch them working the tree where you can see them better.

A couple of quick little White-breasted Nuthatch calls on my phone brought the nuthatch down to check me out.

Quill enjoys all of it.

Brown Creeper

I have been observing more Brown Creepers this winter than I have ever before. I had two in my backyard about a month ago, and on our walk at Two Moon Park last weekend I observed at least 4 and heard another. Of course, I really don't have a good idea of how many are expected here each winter, but either way it has given me a good chance to observe these little bark climbers better than before.

I love to watch their frenetic wanderings up the boles of larger trees, prying into crevices in the bark with their dental pick-like bill, only to drop down to the base of a neighboring tree to start again. The name "creeper" suggests a slow and slinky bird.  Spiderhunter would be appropriate I think, but it is already taken by another group of birds so I guess Brown Creeper it will be.
They forage so close to the trunk and their plumage blends in so well with the tree bark that it would be next to impossible to find them if they weren't moving, but fortunately they don't slow down much.

Well, it is fortunate for finding them anyway- photographing them is another matter. I have a lot of blurry photos that suggest a chunk of bark falling off the tree. I was able to get a few photos when this guy wasn't moving much though.

Below is a closer view of the last image above. If you look close you can see a small insect in the middle of it's bill. Check out the second image above too. You can see the fine, needle-like tongue he uses to pry out insects.