Sleeper Creeper

This morning while walking the woods at work, I watched a Brown Creeper for about five minutes as it worked its way from tree to tree. Then it flew down to the base of a tree and did something I hadn't seen a creeper do--it just stayed put. There was a White-throated Sparrow perched a couple feet away from the creeper, and it was looking up into the sky, so I wondered if the birds were just watching a hawk or something up there, but I couldn't see anything. Then I got closer and the creeper stayed put, clinging motionless to the side of the tree. I'd never seena motionless creeper, so I wondered if something was wrong. Finally, when I was 15 feet away, I could see that its little eye was closed. Was it alive? After about five minutes, it perked up, stretched its wings, squirted out a little dropping, and started hitching itself back up the tree. It was just taking a nap! A sleeping creeper is not something you see every day, so it was fun to witness this little episode in the life of a backyard bird.

On the way to the bank this afternoon I had a Snow Goose in a large flock of Canada Goose in Richboro. Turkey Vultures and a couple singing Carolina Wrens bring the 2006 office yard list up to 27 species.