A blue jay scolds as it flies into your feeder, scattering the smaller birds. The oak and maple trees are just starting to bud open so that gorgeous male scarlet tanager “sticks out like a sore thumb.”

Your windows are open on a cool May evening and at midnight a male mockingbird begins to sing and sing and sing, even in total darkness. Many birds are quite easy to identify by their songs.

Many males of course, use their sexual dichromatism (brighter colors than females) to advertise for potential mates. Some like mockingbirds and the tireless red-eyed vireo, sing all the time. You can’t miss them. If you went to “the shore” and tried to feed a gull a peanut or two, in a moments time, a few dozen squawking and diving laughing gulls will descend upon your chair area.

But ... There is one local bird that you will easily overlook. It has a very soft, almost inaudible call, is not showy like a blue jay, Baltimore oriole, or a tanager, and is usually very solitary. You might call them the introverts of our local birds. It is the brown creeper.

The brown creeper is not a big bird, only 5¼ inches in size. It is a mottled brown and white backed bird that, believe me, blends in with a tree trunk expertly. It has a unique niche. Creepers usually fly to the base of a tree trunk, and, as the name implies, slowly creep up a trunk a few inches at a time.

It is nature’s one half of the tandem of tree climbers looking for insect eggs, overwintering insects, or spiders. The other half of the tandem are the nuthatches, which unlike creepers, start searching a tree trunk from the upper reaches of a trunk and then, headfirst, feed down the trunk.

Between the two niches, we benefit, because it makes it hard for insects to hide under down or upturned bark.

I look for brown creepers when I’m walking the winter woods, or sitting quietly under my tree in the December hunting season. My best success at finding one is to locate a small flock of chickadees and titmice and usually tagging along with them, is a brown creeper.

If you are taking a walk in fall, winter, or spring and you encounter a small flock of forest birds, just stop and watch. Often a brown creeper follows the flock but still remains very solitary.

If you’re trying to hear their song, good luck. It is a soft, high pitched little twitter. My hearing is not anything like it once was, so I can barely hear one, even if it is only 20 or 30 feet away.

They have a noticeable, down curved bill and their tail feathers, like that of woodpeckers, are rather stiff to prop them as they ascend a tree trunk. I’ve never seen one in summer in the Times News area but there may be a few that breed here. (Northern Pennsylvania is there southern breeding range.) I regularly see them in October through early May.

I challenge you to find one in the next few months. A hint, look for them in older forests whose trees have thick, furrowed bark. Make it your winter challenge this year. Let me know of your success.

Test Your Outdoor Knowledge: A _____ turns all white in winter, but keeps a black tipped tail. A. mink B. fisher C. smoky shrew D. long-tailed weasel

Last Week’s Trivia Answer: A group of bobwhites is called a covey.

Barry Reed is a Saturday columnist in the Times News. Contact him at breed71@gmail.com.