Chiriqui Foliage-gleaner

How to find it

Start by listening for the loud rattle along forest trails, since birds are often heard before they are seen. Watch the lower and middle understory, especially vine tangles and fallen limbs. Check passing mixed flocks, because the bird often travels with them. If a guide finds an army ant swarm, stay for it, as the species may join the birds gathering there. On a deep south tour, guides found it from the trail at Wilson Botanical Gardens. It is common to fairly common and seems to tolerate some forest fragmentation, so older secondary forest is worth a look too.

How to recognise it

Look for four marks together:

A bold buff eyering.

An ochre-buff throat.

A streaked breast.

Bright rufous undertail coverts.

It belongs to the Furnariidae, and it has no subspecies, so birds across its small range are described alike. The look-alike is the Buff-throated Foliage-gleaner, from which it was split, and voice is the best way to tell the two apart. A clear view of eyering and throat together is a good sign you have the right bird.

Behaviour and diet

This foliage-gleaner forages in dead leaves for insects and other small invertebrates. It often joins mixed flocks in humid forest, and it sometimes rises higher when following them.

It can also join the feeding frenzy at an army ant swarm. Army ants flush insects, so birds gather there, and guides can use a swarm to show this otherwise hard bird. One group had great looks at such a bird at Carara.

It can turn up close to buildings too: one bird interrupted a tour group's lunch in the southern lowlands.

Where it lives

In Costa Rica it lives on the Pacific slope in the south and is absent from the dry northwest. Its range continues into western Panama.

Across its range it uses tropical evergreen forest, older secondary forest and coffee plantations, from sea level up to about 1,400 m (4,600 ft). Spanish-language sources place it in the dense understory of humid tropical forest, mostly below 1,000 m. It usually stays in the lower to middle understory, often among vine tangles and fallen limbs.

When to see it

One source gives a breeding season of February to May but does not say whether this applies to Costa Rica. The bird nests in a tunnel dug into an earth bank.

Similar birds

The look-alike is the Buff-throated Foliage-gleaner, which was long lumped with this bird. That species occurs on the Atlantic slope, and the two do not overlap in range. The AOS committee accepted the split in 2018 and the Costa Rican official list followed. Voice is the best separator.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Costa Rican sources call it Hojarrasquero de Chiriquí, and Ticotico de Chiriquí is another name listed. In Panama it is Rascahojas de Chiriquí. Before the 2018 split, Costa Rican lists called this bird Hojarrasquero Gorgianteado, the name of the Buff-throated Foliage-gleaner.

Status and conservation

The AOCR list treats it as a resident endemic (R-END), with its whole range a small part of the Pacific slope in Costa Rica and western Panama.

Photography tips

It usually stays in the lower to middle understory of dense forest, often among vine tangles and fallen limbs. It sometimes rises higher when following mixed flocks, so watching flocks is one way to get a view.