Up and Down

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Up and Down

THERE ARE TWO delightful little birds that run up and down trees. They are quite different in colour and shape but their most distinguishing feature is that one runs down while the other always climbs up. The climber is the treecreeper and the nuthatch runs down.

Treecreepers (right) are really quite common in Tayside but they are not always easy to see because they really are Little Brown Jobs or LBJs with white underparts. The best way to see them is to watch for movement on the bare trunks of big trees.

Once spotted their behaviour is diagnostic for a treecreeper looks just like a mouse making its jerky way up the trunk of an Oak or other mature tree. It supports itself with rigid tail feathers and its prowess is enviable to any would-be rock-climber as it probes into nooks and crannies of bark for insects usually quite silently.

When it finishes searching one tree it flies down to the base of the next and begins its climb again. They like to roost in the soft bark of Wellingtonias in hen’s egg sized holes in the trunk.

When we lived in Warwickshire we often had nuthatches in the garden and I loved them with their slaty grey backs and apricot bellies. They love hazelnuts which they split with their hatchet-like bills ... hence the name They are neat businesslike creatures with a marked black eyestripe and, of course, they run downwards, upside down and sometimes along the underside of a lateral branch.

When Spring approaches they have a ‘butcher’s boy’ whistle which is unmistakeable and is often the first indication of ther presence. I was sad to leave them when we came to Scotland where, my books told me, they did not occur. Then there were rumours of them in the Borders and on one of my wife’s ‘short breaks’ I was taken to Mellerstain in Berwickshire where Lord Haddington has them nesting in a cranny of his mansion and, sure enough, I saw my first Scottish nuthatch.

The next exciting news was a snippet in the Perthshire bird report that a cat had brought a dead nuthatch into a house in Dunkeld. Disappointing news, but if a cat can find one so might I. They are now tracked down to a secret location near the Cathedral where a friend spends more than he can afford on peanuts which they love. Despite standing for ages and nearly freezing to death in various parts of the close I have not yet ticked my first Perthshire nuthatch. However, their slow movement northwards is yet another sign of climate change.

Nuthatches

Nuthatches love the warmth and I have seen several different species of their genus, the Sittadae, in temperate climates such as the Mediterranean and the southern states of the USA. Tree creepers, too, come in two varieties: our treecreeper here is Certhia familiaris - the first of these names dates back to Aristotle and comes from the Greek kerthios which he used for a small bird climbing trees; familiaris means common or confiding.

If you cross the Channel you may see Certhia brachydactyla or the short toed treecreeper but you will need sharper eyes than mine to tell the difference between them, for it is miniscule. I only know I have seen the short toed treecreeper because I saw the creature in Cyprus`where C. familiaris does not exist ... at least that’s what the books say but, come to think of it that’s what they said about nuthatches in Scotland.

That’s what makes bird watching such fun, one never knows if one is up or down!