Plain-brown Woodcreeper

The plain-brown woodcreeper is 19 to 22.5 cm (7.5 to 8.9 in) long. Males weigh 30 to 50 g (1.1 to 1.8 oz) and females 25 to 46 g (0.88 to 1.6 oz). The species is a medium-sized member of its genus, with a straight medium-length bill and a slight crest. The sexes have the same plumage but females are smaller than males. The nominate subspecies D. f. fuliginosa has a narrow buff supercilium and a faint buff stripe under an otherwise grayish face. Its crown, nape, back, and wing coverts are dull olive-brown; its uppertail coverts and tail are rufous-chestnut. Its wings are rufous-chestnut with dusky outer edges and tips on the primaries. Its throat is pale gray to buffy with fine mottling. Its breast and belly are paler olive-brown than its back and with fine buff streaks on the former. Its undertail coverts are cinnamon-rufous and its underwing coverts cinnamon-buff to ochraceous. Its iris is yellowish brown to dark brown or pale gray, its bill black with whitish, yellowish, or gray edges and tip, and its legs and feet black, slate gray, dark brownish olive, or light blue. The other subspecies of the plain-brown woodcreeper differ from the nominate thus:

D. f. ridgwayi, more rufescent, less mottling and streaking, a less grayish throat, and a black bill D. f. …

The subspecies of the plain-brown woodcreeper are found thus:

D. f. ridgwayi, from northeastern Honduras through Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, western Colombia, and western Ecuador into northwestern Peru D. f. lafresnayei, northern and eastern Colombia and adjoining northwestern Venezuela D. f. meruloides, northern Venezuela, Trinidad, and Tobago D. f. deltana, the delta of the Orinoco River in northeastern Venezuela D. f. barinensis, north-central Colombia and west-central Venezuela D. f. phaeochroa, the Amazon Basin of southeastern Colombia, southern Venezuela, and northwestern Brazil D. f. neglecta, the western Amazon Basin on both sides of the Amazon River from eastern Ecuador and eastern Peru to the Rio Negro and Rio Madeira D. f. atrirostris, the southwestern Amazon Basin in southeastern Peru, northern and central Bolivia, and southwestern Brazil to the Rio Tapajós D. f. fuliginosa, the Amazon Basin north of the Amazon River in southeastern Venezuela, the Guianas, and northern Brazil between the Rio Negro and the Atlantic Ocean D. f. rufoolivacea, Brazil south of the Amazon River between the Rio Tapajós and the state of Maranhão D. f. trumaii, the upper Rio Xingu in Brazil's Mato Grosso state The plain-brown woodcreeper inhabits a variety of humid forest landscapes. …

The plain-brown woodcreeper mostly forages in the lower to mid-levels of the forest. Its diet is a wide variety of arthropods (mostly beetles and orthoptera) and also includes small vertebrates like lizards. It often follows army ant swarms to feed on prey fleeing the ants, but is not exclusively an ant-follower. It often forages alone, as a member of a mixed-species feeding flock, and by following South American coatis (Nasua nasua) and troops of monkeys . When attending an ant swarm it clings to a vertical trunk or vine, typically between 4 and 10 m (13 and 33 ft) above the ground. It makes brief flights to capture prey from other trunks and stems, foliage, the ground, and in mid-air. Away from ants it may perch higher or lower, and on horizontal branches.