Eurasian treecreeper

Common Treecreeper
Conservation status
Least Concern
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Certhiidae
Genus:	Certhia
Species:	C. familiaris
Binomial name
Certhia familiaris Linnaeus, 1758

The Common Treecreeper, Certhia familiaris, is a small passerine bird found through much of temperate Europe and in some parts of Asia. It is a member of the treecreeper family. Together with the very similar Short-toed Treecreeper, the Brown Creeper and Hodgson's Treecreeper, it forms a distinct group of treecreeper species. It has a generally more northerly distribution than the Short-toed Treecreeper, although there is extensive range overlap in western Europe. Where both occur, Common Treecreeper tends to prefer conifers.

Common Treecreeper is the only treecreeper which breeds in Ireland, Great Britain and most of Scandinavia.

It is a resident in woodlands throughout its range, and nests in tree crevices or behind the bark of introduced Giant Sequoia. Up to nine eggs are laid.

This is a small 12.5-14cm long bird, fairly drab in appearance, streaked brownish above and white below. It has long stiff tail feathers which help it creep up tree trunks like a mouse looking for insects. It has a long curved bill.

Recently, the subspecies hodgsoni, mandellii and khamensis from the southern rim of the Himalaya have been determined to constitute a distinct species, Hodgson's Treecreeper (C. hodgsoni) (Tietze et al., 2006).

Gallery

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References

• Template:IUCN2006 Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern
• Tietze, Dieter Thomas; Martens, Jochen & Sun, Yue-Hua (2006): Molecular phylogeny of treecreepers (Certhia) detects hidden diversity. Ibis 148(3): 477-488 (HTML abstract)

External links

• Common Treecreeper videos on the Internet Bird Collection