Brown-billed Scythebill

The brown-billed scythebill is 20 to 25 cm (7.9 to 9.8 in) long and weighs 32 to 48 g (1.1 to 1.7 oz). It is a slim, medium-sized woodcreeper with a very long, slim, dramatically decurved bill. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies have a face and neck streaked buff and blackish brown, with a faint buffy supercilium. Their crown and nape are dark brown, with thin deep buff streaks that extend sparsely onto the upper back. Their back and wing coverts are deep reddish brown, their rump is cinnamon-rufous, and their wings and tail are rufous-chestnut. Their primaries have grayish brown edges and dusky tips. Their throat is deep buff with dusky streaks. Their underparts are dark brown to olive-brown that becomes more rufescent on the lower belly and undertail coverts. Their lower neck, breast, and upper belly have thin deep buff streaks; their undertail coverts have lighter buff streaks. Their underwing coverts are cinnamon-buff to ochraceous. Their iris is dark brown to cinnamon-brown, their bill blackish brown to brownish horn, and their legs and feet olive-green to blackish brown. Juveniles are darker and more olivaceous than adults, with wider deeper buff but less distinct streaks, and a shorter and darker bill. The other subspecies of the brown-billed scythebill differ from the nominate and each other thus:

C. p. …

The subspecies of the brown-billed scythebill have discontinuous ranges and are found thus:

C. p. borealis, Caribbean slope and part of Pacific slope of Costa Rica; western Panama into Chiriquí and Bocas del Toro provinces; one record in extreme southern Nicaragua C. p. olivaceus, central and eastern Panama between Veraguas and Darién provinces C. p. tachirensis, northeastern Colombia's Serranía del Perijá and extreme Eastern Andes into northwestern Venezuelan states of Zulia and Táchira C. p. guapiensis, coastal areas in southwestern Colombia's Cauca Department C. p. pusillus, both slopes of Colombia's Western and Central Andes south through both slopes of Ecuador's Andes and into Peru's Andes on the east slope to the Department of San Martín The brown-billed scythebill inhabits humid evergreen forest, mostly in highlands but locally in lowlands. It favors middle-elevation cloudforest, where it is found in the interior and edges. It less often occurs in mature secondary forest. In Central America it ranges in elevation mostly between 300 and 1,700 m (1,000 and 5,600 ft) but reaches 2,500 m (8,200 ft) in southern Costa Rica. In Colombia it ranges from 250 to 2,700 m (800 to 8,900 ft). In Ecuador it mostly occurs between 600 and 2,100 m (2,000 and 6,900 ft) but locally is found as low as 300 m (1,000 ft).

The brown-billed scythebill's diet is mostly arthropods. It usually forages singly and occasionally in pairs, and very often as part of a mixed-species feeding flock. It hitches up and along trunks and vines, mostly from the understory to the subcanopy. It typically takes its prey from the surface of the substrate, and also by probing crevices and holes in bark, bromeliads, epiphytes, moss, and vine tangles.