"Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else."- Lawrence Block
Treecreepers are small songbirds with a slender more or less decurved bill and stiff pointed tail feathers serving as props in climbing trees. They fly to the base of a tree and hop their way up the trunk in a spiral fashion foraging for insects and spiders in the crevices beneath the thick bark. They then drop to the base of the next tree to start the same process again. This process of climbing the tree from the bottom to the top gives it its name - treecreeper.
The bar-tailed treecreeper or the Himalayan treecreeper with its striped tail feather pattern and colouration of black, brown, white, red hues blends easily with the bark of the trees and is very difficult to spot unless we notice its movement.
Their genus name "Certhia" comes from the Greek word "kerthios" which Aristotle described as - "a little bird living around trees ".
Bar-tailed treecreeper
(Certhia himalayana)
Sony A77II
Tamron 150-600
L : f/6.3, 1/640s, ISO3200, 400mm
R : f/5.6, 1/640s, ISO2000, 280mm
Barlowganj, Uttarakhand (India)
May 2019