This must be one of the weirdest ever Wallcreeper photographs. They breed on remote cliffs, usually at low density, and that largely grey plumage makes them difficult to spot, unless they fly to reveal their red, black and white wings. In all my years of birdwatching I haven’t seen very many Wallcreepers, but each of the three times I have stayed at this hotel in Sichuan I have seen a Wallcreeper picking moths from window frames. That’s despite there being numerous cliff faces nearby, where I have never seen a single Wallcreeper. This one perched briefly on a decorative verandah and I managed a single shot before it flew. It was still a little bit distant but I thought it was unusual enough to be worth posting.
Its scientific name is Tichodroma muraria which means “wall-runner, of the walls”, but when it was first described it was placed in the genus Certhia with the Treecreepers. Very, very occasionally Wallcreepers wander from Europe and arrive in Britain, though there are only 10 records, with the last being in 1985. It is one of the most highly sought-after birds by British birders as the last truly “twitchable” one was back in 1978.
[registration_form]
I managed to see one in Turkey in 1996, but only because it had been
flushed by a couple of Chamois, high on a big rock face, like a very
Small moth fluttering here and there.
A couple of years later, in Georgia, working up a difficult river gorge for Lammergeier, our local contact went a little way ahead to see if it was safe to continue, it wasn’t.
It was only on the way down, he casually mentioned that he had flushed a Wallcreeper from a nest ……
A fine bird. In France they move to the lowlands in winter and can be seen in places near us in the Cevennes – but I’ve only ever seen them in the Pyrenees. They can get quite far north though; this year there was a relatively long staying bird at the Chateau Royal d’Amboise on the Loire, not much more than 100km from Paris. It seemed to like the castle ramparts.
The rich diversity of life, including birds, is truly amazing. And some people would trash all this for a bit more money. What is wrong with them?
I haven’t got the photo, Tim but my Wallcreeper was really out of context – there was a cliff, but it was the point at Leucate in the Languedoc above the Mediterranean sea – I thought it was something like a Wheatear until it flew – instant recognition !
I can imagine it at that spot – what time of year was it?
Thanks Alan. I took the photograph on 20 November 2019, which is well after the breeding season in Sichuan. I should also have said that the hotel was constructed out of shiny polished granite where a Wallcreeper could not cling, presumably unlike the castle ramparts you mention which would be quite similar to a natural cliff. The Wallcreeper hopped along the windowsills and flew up to take insects from the window frames, particularly moths.
Fantastic photo. Perhaps my favourite bird. I have seen them twice in Georgia, once almost at the same time as a Lammergeier walking up a gorge with a dreadful hangover (me not the lammergeier). Best though, was to see one, relatively low down in dense fog, skulking on the wall of a monastery in Nagorno-Karabakh. I am not a twitcher but if one were to make an appearance in the UK I might just make an exception.