Wedge-billed Woodcreeper

The wedge-billed woodcreeper is the smallest woodcreeper, with a short, upturned, wedge-shaped bill resembling those of the three members of genus Xenops. It is 13 to 16 cm (5.1 to 6.3 in) long and weighs 10.5 to 21 g (0.37 to 0.74 oz). The sexes are alike. The nominate subspecies G. s. spirurus has a grayish forehead, a rich brown to russet-brown crown and nape, light buff lores, a thin buff to buff-white supercilium, a buff eyering, sooty-brown auriculars, and a brown malar stripe. Its upper back and scapulars are rich brown to russet-brown, and its lower back, uppertail coverts, and tail are cinnamon-rufous to rufous-chestnut. Its wing coverts are russet, its inner secondaries rufous, and its other secondaries and its primaries dark brown with blackish tips. The underside of most wing feathers have a stripe of buff to buff-white that shows as a band in flight. The sides of its neck are brown with small buff spots and its throat is whitish buff to buff with some dusky spots. Its underparts are olive-brown to russet-brown, its undertail coverts have a rufous-chestnut wash, and its underwing coverts and axillaries are white. Its upper breast has large round fulvous spots and its lower breast has narrow streaks of the same color. …

The subspecies of the wedge-billed woodcreeper are found thus:

G. s. pectoralis, from Veracruz in southern Mexico south on the Caribbean slope through Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua onto the Caribbean and Pacific slopes through Costa Rica into central and western Panama. At least one record from El Salvador. G. s. subrufescens, Pacific slope of southeastern Panama south through western Colombia into western Ecuador as far as El Oro Province G. s. pallidulus, both slopes of eastern Panama into Colombia's Chocó Department G. s. integratus, northern Colombia and east of its Andes into western Venezuela G. s. rufigularis, the Amazon Basin north of the Amazon River from central Colombia and southern Venezuela south into northeastern Ecuador and northwestern Brazil east to the Rio Negro G. s. amacurensis, northeastern Venezuela's Sucre and Delta Amacuro states G. s. spirurus, the Amazon Basin north of the Amazon River from eastern Venezuela east through the Guianas and Brazil from the Rio Negro to the Atlantic Ocean G. s. coronobscurus, Cerro de la Neblina in southern Venezuela G. s. castelnaudii, the Amazon Basin south of the Rio Napo and Amazon River from eastern and northeastern Peru into Brazil east to the Rio Madeira G. s. albigularis, the Amazon Basin in southeastern Peru and northern Bolivia G. s. …

The wedge-billed woodcreeper usually forages in pairs or as a member of mixed-species feeding flocks, especially those led by Thamnomanes antshrikes. It seldom follows army ant swarms but will feed at the edges of them when a feeding flock encounters a swarm. It mostly feeds in the lower to middle levels of the forest though it will go higher. Its diet is almost entirely very small arthropods, which it captures while hitching up a trunk or less often along a branch. It picks prey from crevices and clumps of moss, flakes bark, and hammers on wood.