If you go creeping through the woods at Strumpshaw Fen, there's a good chance you'll come across a few other creepers along the way.
Now's a great time of year to look out for treecreepers - today I stood in one spot and spotted four treecreepers sneaking up the trees nearest to me. They had joined a merry flock of long-tailed tits that darted among the treetops making soft contact calls and flicking their tails as they hung from swaying twigs. Treecreepers often join flocks of tits in winter, so when you you come across a flock of blue-, great-, or long-tailed tits in woodland it's worth scanning the trees for these small curve-billed creatures scurrying up the trunks like mice. You'll often spot them in pairs - the female tends to forage for insects in the top half of the tree trunk while the male forages in the bottom half, each using their curved beaks to delve for insects in the cracked bark.
With luck, you might even spot a different bird creeping down the tree head-first. Nuthatches are the only birds that can walk down a tree - their strong toes clinging to the trunk with a firm grip. These masked bandits are showing wonderfully in the Strumpshaw woods at the moment and even on the bird feeders.
A visitor said to me that she loves visiting wild places in winter because you get to "see the bare bones of a place". That's certainly true of the Strumpshaw woods - stripped bare, you can peer deeper into the tangled woods and higher into the skeletal treetops to see life flitting and darting around you. Just stop a moment and let yourself be captivated.
PHOTO: Nuthatch by Melanie Beck