Knowledge is over-rated

There’s a Treecreeper, Certhia familiaris, on the tree in front of me:

That’s very exciting. I creep a little closer to the tree:

Treecreepers spend their entire lives with their noses an inch from a tree’s surface. I’m not convinced they have great distance sight. It certainly doesn’t seem to have spotted me. Their plumage is quite complex, with patterns of beautiful variety.

The tip of their downturned beak seems to be perfectly positioned to move accurately into crevices and extract their insect prey:

Treecreepers have a long white stripe above their eyes. I’ve heard people calling it a ‘supercilium’, as if they think that’s an important thing to know. “It’s called a supercilium”, they say. A supercilium? It sounds important, doesn’t it? If someone uses a word like that it makes you think that they know something important. What does it actually mean? Super means above and cilium means eyelashes; it means above the eye.

Knowledge is over-rated. Anyone who thinks knowing long words is important is just being supercilious.