Treecreeper

An early start, as Alex had arranged a day's work on Orton Pit Reserve, starting at 8.15am. When we arrived at the site the gates of the access road were locked, probably because the contractor's have stopped work on the neighbouring housing development until after Christmas. We tried to navigate our way through the new estate, but as it 's a veritable maze of identical houses we got completely lost, with very little petrol in the car!

We finally emerged a long way from our intended destination, and I decided to stop at a nearby petrol station before proceeding. Alex had already texted the site manager to let him know of our predicament, but got no reply. We finally turned up at the locked gates again, but there was no sign of the site manager or his car. After texting again, and leaving a message, we gave up and returned home. At that moment Alex received a text from the site manager saying that he'd got confused and forgotten the arrangement!!

Pete and I then went Christmas shopping, fairly successfully, though this was possibly because most of our time was spent in Waterstones. We managed to escape before the crowds really started to build up :) I then just had time for a walk round Ferry Meadows before going to our annual Grafton Girls get-together.

The sky was overcast and I didn't feel very inspired. But as I was heading back to the car I heard the thin, high-pitched tseep of a treecreeper. Normally they are fairly shy, but this one was totally engrossed hunting for insects on willow trunks next to the lake and let me approach quite close. Unfortunately the light levels were low, and I didn't have my best lens, so the quality of the image is lower than I'd like .

A treecreeper always climb up a tree trunks like a mouse, to search for insects which it picks from crevices in the bark with its fine curved bill. Unlike a nuthatch, it does not come down trees. Instead it flies to the base of another tree with a distinctive erratic flight.

The hind claw is impressively long and helps it to grip securely onto the tree bark. It also has a very stiff tail, which acts as a prop. Apparently the female treecreeper forages primarily on the upper parts of the tree trunks, while the male uses the lower parts. This one was staying very low so is perhaps a male.