I read that females forage on the upper half of tree trunks while the males take the lower halves. I am not sure how that was worked out because the sexes look alike. If true, it is an interesting division of labour.
At one stage while I was watching the sparrowhawk alarm went up. All the other birds fled but the treecreepers froze, relying on their camouflage for protection (interestingly great spotted woodpeckers do the same thing despite their colouring). In the end it was a false alarm, as most of them are.
BTO data show that the UK population is fairly stable, although these are small secretive camouflaged birds so they can't be easy to survey.
Treecreepers are woodland birds and are infrequently recorded in the BTO Garden BirdWatch data but numbers peak at this time of year.
Thomas Bewick made this woodcut for A History British Birds (1797).
Archibald Thorburn painted treecreepers several times.
You can listen to Bill Oddie's BBC Radio 4 Tweet of the Day here.
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