Brown-billed Scythebill

How to find it

Look and listen in the canopy and subcanopy of humid lowland and foothill forest. Check mixed flocks moving through foothill and cloud forest, since that is where it is most often seen. Scan bromeliad-covered trunks and limbs as a flock passes. Expect to hear it before you see it: birders on a November trip heard scythebills singing downslope that would not come in, and a tour report logged one only by sound. Dawn and dusk are when it sings most.

How to recognise it

This is a slim, medium-sized woodcreeper, about 20 to 25 cm long. Look first at the bill:

- very long and thin

- sharply downcurved

- a dull brownish colour, the only scythebill bill of that colour within its range

The face and neck are streaked buff and blackish brown. The crown and nape are dark brown with thin buff streaks that reach a little onto the upper back. Males and females look alike.

The Costa Rican form, borealis, is darker overall than the nominate form. It has a blacker crown, more olive underparts and deeper chestnut wings and tail. Its buff streaks are narrower but cover more of the bird.

What it sounds like

Recording: Niels Krabbe, CC BY-SA 4.0, source, read 5 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

The scythebill joins mixed-species flocks, so the flock is what carries it past you. It searches bark surfaces and crevices for arthropods. In Costa Rica it probes crevices, mosses, epiphytes and bromeliads, and it is most often seen following a flock, sometimes at the edge in second growth. Birders near San Ramon found one with a flock that came after an Olive Tanager and described it as a tough canopy skulker that only some of the group saw.

Where it lives

In Central America it mostly lives between 300 and 1,700 m, and in southern Costa Rica it reaches 2,500 m. The Costa Rican subspecies, borealis, lives on the Caribbean slope and in part of the Pacific slope, described as the southwest plus adjacent lowlands. Look in the canopy and subcanopy of humid lowland and foothill forest. Across its range it favors middle-elevation cloud forest, using both interior and edges, and it is less often found in mature secondary forest.

Similar birds

Where it is the only scythebill, as in Costa Rica, it is easy to identify. The similar Red-billed Scythebill lives in South America, and the brownish bill separates the Brown-billed where the two overlap. Its whistled series usually has a stutter, which also helps. Bill colour is often hard to judge, so use it alongside the song.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Costa Ricans call it Trepador Pico de Hoz. Other countries use different names, such as Guadañero Estriado in Colombia and Picoguadaña Piquipardo in Panama and Ecuador. An older English name is Costa Rican Woodhewer, and the genus name Campylorhamphus comes from Greek words meaning curved and bill.

Status and conservation

The Costa Rican bird list treats it as a resident (R), and the IUCN rates it Least Concern.

Photography tips

Stay at one spot while a mixed flock works through, and keep your camera on bromeliad-covered trunks and limbs, where it probes. One Santa Elena bird was elusive at first, then settled beside a big bromeliad and gave long views through a scope.