Buffy Tuftedcheek

The buffy tuftedcheek is 20 to 21 cm (7.9 to 8.3 in) long and weighs about 35 to 50 g (1.2 to 1.8 oz). The sexes' plumages are alike but the female has a significantly longer bill than the male. The species' most distinctive feature is its namesake pale golden tawny tuft of feathers that flare on the side of the neck. Adults have a buff-whitish supercilium and blackish brown lores and ear coverts. Their crown is blackish brown with many thin buff streaks, their hindcrown similar with wider streaks, and the rest of their back rufescent-brown with a faint blackish scallop pattern. Their rump, uppertail coverts, and tail are bright chestnut rufous. Their wings are blackish brown with pale rufous and ochraceous buff tips on the coverts that form bars when the wing is closed. Their throat is whitish with a golden-tawny tinge, their breast a blurry pattern of wide dull brown and pale buff streaks, their belly dull tawny-buff with faint darker mottling, their flanks rufescent brown, and their undertail coverts ochraceous to cinnamon. Their iris is dark brown, their maxilla black to dark brown, their mandible usually paler than the maxilla with a darker center, and their legs and feet olive green to yellowish olive. …

The buffy tuftedcheek is found from the central part of Costa Rica's Central Highlands south into western Panama as far as Veraguas Province. It inhabits humid montane evergreen forest, where it favors somewhat open tracts, the edges of denser tracts, and clearings with scattered trees. In elevation it ranges from 1,550 m (5,100 ft) to timberline at about 3,000 m (9,800 ft).

The buffy tuftedcheek's diet is mostly a wide variety of arthropods but also includes small amphibians. It forages singly or in pairs and frequently joins mixed species feeding flocks. It forages by clambering along branches from the forest's mid level to the canopy. It does most of its foraging in epiphytes, among which it favors bromeliads. It also seeks prey in mosses and among clumps of dead leaves.