Plate 90 – Black and White Creeper

As far as John James Audubon was able to observe, the Black and White Creeper “climbs and creeps along the trunks, the branches, and even the twigs of the trees, without intermission, and so seldom perches, that I do not remember ever having seen it in such a position.” Audubon also observed that the Black and White Creeper kept its tail lifted as it creeped as opposed to the Brown creeper (Plate 415) which pushes its tail against trunks and limbs for leverage as it typically creeps up a tree and then flies to the bottom of the next tree to repeat the process. Noticing the tail position, Audubon re-named the Black and White Creeper the Black-and-white creeping-warbler for the later octavo edition of Birds of America. The current common name for the bird is the Black-and-white warbler.