the ground. The male will guard the female during this nest building phase as well as 2–3 days before the egg is laid. Song Brown creepers are vocal all year round except during late summer. Territorial songs peak in spring with only the male brown creepers giving off a long territorial song. This song varies from bird to bird. The male song will be a mixture of slurs, musical whistles and harsh notes, where as the female song is a rapid sequence of brief notes with the last note being high pitched and prolonged. The brown creeper song consists of short and attractive warbles, very distinct from other species, however the “conversational chatter”, can be easily confused for other small bush dwelling birds. Migration Brown creepers that breed at high altitude will come down to the lowlands and form flocks in the winter. Other than that they are non-migratory. Egg Laying Brown creepers can lay their eggs from late September until early February. Males will not only guard the females during the 2–3 days prior to the eggs being laid but during the first part of the laying period as well. Female brown creepers will normally have two clutches per session with egg laying peaks in early October and late November. They can have up to four clutches in a session if the nest fails early on but they will only ever brood two clutches of eggs. Brown creepers will have 2-4 eggs at 24 hour intervals. The size of the egg is 18.5mm x 14mm and weights on average 1.9g. The female will incubate the eggs alone for 17–21 days until the eggs hatch. Brooding Both birds will feed the young until they are ready to fledge at around 18–22 days old. Once the female starts to incubate the second clutch then the male will take over and continue feeding the fledging's. In drought conditions there have been examples of the brown creepers showing cooperative breeding. If their nesting attempts fail, then they will start contributing food to another nest as well as helping brood the successful brown creeper pairs chicks. The young birds will be feed through until the end of winter at the latest before they become independent (35–65 days). Brown creepers can also be seen during the summer months feeding a long-tailed cuckoo chick that is much larger than themselves. Brown creepers are the main host