Northern Barred-Woodcreeper

How to find it

Start with the ants. Following an army ant swarm is a good way to see this bird, and swarms attract many forest birds at Arenal, La Selva and Carara National Park. Listen for its song and calls at dawn and dusk, then look near a swarm. Watch the understory rather than the canopy. At Carara, a guide watched a Great Tinamou feed quietly at a small swarm for ten minutes, and this woodcreeper was the only other bird to show up, so be patient even when a swarm looks quiet. Forest edges and mature secondary forest are also worth a look.

How to recognise it

This is a large woodcreeper with a black bill and no streaks. A Panama source calls it one of the largest woodcreepers, about 26 cm long.

The name promises barring, and it is barred on head, back and underparts. That barring may be less obvious than you expect, but it shows up with a close look. A March 2024 tour group had wonderful views of finely barred birds at an ant swarm at Carara.

Look for these marks:

Adults of the main subspecies have a cinnamon-brown, finely barred face.

Forehead, crown and nape are rufous.

The back is olive-brown, with black barring on the crown and back.

Rump and tail are rufous, and the tail is unbarred.

The bill is black.

What it sounds like

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

Behaviour and diet

It feeds mostly by following army ant swarms and catching the prey the ants flush out. It sometimes forages away from swarms, usually low to mid-level in the forest, and in Costa Rica it usually stays in the understory.

It eats many kinds of arthropods, taken at swarms or gleaned from foliage and trunks, sometimes in the air. It also eats small lizards. Other regulars at swarms include Plain-brown, Cocoa and Black-striped Woodcreepers, and Bicolored and Chestnut-backed Antbirds.

In Costa Rica it breeds from May to July and nests in a natural tree cavity.

Where it lives

Across its range it mostly lives in humid, tall evergreen forest. It also uses gallery forest, semi-deciduous forest and mangroves. It prefers forest interior but is regular at edges and in mature secondary forest.

In Costa Rica it is fairly common in low and foothill forests on both slopes, and it reaches as high as about 1,300 m. It also uses riparian habitat in Guanacaste. It is found in the Caribbean lowlands, the northern lowlands, the Nicoya Peninsula and the Pacific lowlands of the southwest, including the Osa Peninsula.

When to see it

In Costa Rica it breeds from May to July, nesting in a natural tree cavity.

Similar birds

It was recently split from the Amazonian Barred-Woodcreeper because of differences in voice, behaviour and looks. The Amazonian species does not occur in Costa Rica. Ivory-billed Woodcreeper has a strong, straight, pale bill and a paler head than Cocoa Woodcreeper, while Northern Barred has a black bill and fine barring. At swarms, also compare Tawny-winged and Wedge-billed Woodcreepers.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

In Costa Rica the species is called Trepador Barreteado, and the same name is used in Nicaragua. Spanish names elsewhere differ: trepatroncos barrado norteño in Colombia, trepatroncos barreteado norteño in Ecuador and Panama, trepatroncos del Magdalena in Colombia and trepador zuliano in Venezuela.

Status and conservation

The AOCR list marks it as a resident (R), and globally it is Least Concern, though the population is thought to be decreasing.

Photography tips

A Costa Rican birding blog says woodcreepers are very hard to photograph and advises focusing on the head and bill to identify them. At La Selva, a bird that made repeat visits to flowering heliconias near the cafeteria gave a tour group good views.