Short-toed treecreeper or Eurasian treecreeper - Düsseldorf [Germany] (1 Viewer)

[David_]

Hello,

I took some photos of a treecreeper on January 6th and I am not sure if it's Short-toed or Eurasian. There were multiple treecreepers around calling and chasing each other. By the calls most where Short-toed but at least one was Eurasian but I didn't see which one had the different call. Could it be this one?
In general both species appear in the area but Short-toed is by far outnumbering Eurasian treecreeper (local subspecies is C. f. macrodactyla which is not as pale a familiaris and according to my Svensson guide bill length is variable / not as short).

Hind claw looks a bit longer and the underside a bit paler than the regular Short-toed treecreepers around. Also it has a prominent white supercilium. Couldn't get any views of the backside to look at the feather tips and the steps on the wing bar are somewhere in between.

What do you think? Short-toed or Eurasian treecreeper? Or not enough to ID?

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

I'd favour Short-toed on this. It's obviously hard to be sure but to me the wing bar looks fairly evenly spaced, the bill is certainly rather long and the underparts looks quite dusky and brownish at the rear.

 

[Xenospiza]

Agree with Short-toed Treecreeper. The wingbar fits.

 

[kuzeycem]

White edging to alula also pro-STT

 

[David_]

So it’s a STT. Thanks everyone!

I will spend some time studying photos of both species to get better with treecreepers. For now I will stick to listening to their calls for identification and leave birds which I haven’t heard (or couldn’t see which one was calling) as treecreeper sp.

 

[Bewick]

So it’s a STT. Thanks everyone!

I will spend some time studying photos of both species to get better with treecreepers. For now I will stick to listening to their calls for identification and leave birds which I haven’t heard (or couldn’t see which one was calling) as treecreeper sp.

I’ve seen short toed treecreepers in France and I never knew about their call until I heard an extremely strange call… looked with my bino’s and saw a short toed treecreeper on the bottom of a huge oak tree.

 

[01101001]

Hind claw looks a bit longer

Some great photos with descriptions here: Short-toed Treecreeper (Certhia brachydactyla) -> Treecreeper (Certhia brachydactyla) - BirdID's Bird Guide - Nord University - Birdid. I've consulted them many times (and yet still have some doubts, but at least it's a good resource).

EDIT: And also this side-by-side comparison: https://10000birds.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/treecreeper.jpg--my new bookmark in the browser (from the 'Collins Bird Guide'; not sure what it looks like in Svensonn's).
EDIT 2: 😮 It's actually the same book! I feel I should've known that. But the website from above still stands.

 

[Andy Hurley]

The German and English versions are identical in layout. The UK version is obviously for UK based birders and vica versa for the German book. I brought my Collins to our winter bird count and one of the others had the Cosmos? (I can't be sure) version, also by Svensson et al. Quite interesting, but not suprising I suppose, considering the amount of work involved. I've seen the Swedish version too