Wallcreepers | Tichodromidae

Rotskruipers | Treparriscos

A single species, the Wallcreeper, which lives on vertical rock as treecreepers live on bark. The plumage is slate grey, but the wing coverts are crimson and the flight feathers black with round white spots, so the bird lights up against a bare face at every wingbeat. The wings are strikingly broad and rounded and carry a slow, irregular, fluttering flight that along a cliff suggests a large butterfly rather than a passerine. The bill is long, thin and strongly decurved, and draws spiders and insects out of narrow cracks and from behind cushions of moss. There is no stiff propping tail: the bird grips with long toes and big hooked claws and keeps its balance by flicking its wings half open and shut without pause, which at range is the surest mark of all. The nest is set deep in a rock crevice or under an overhang, beyond the reach of predators, and both parents feed the young on the face. The family is tied to high, crevice-rich cliffs and to the screes below them; in winter the birds drop from the high mountains to lower crags, gorges, quarries and old masonry.