Red-faced Spinetail

The red-faced spinetail is 14 to 15 cm (5.5 to 5.9 in) long and weighs 13 to 20 g (0.46 to 0.71 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies have a rufous face and crown. Their nape and back are rich olive-brown that is richer and brighter on the rump and uppertail coverts. Their wings are rufous and their flight feathers have slightly duller edges and dark fuscous tips. Their tail is reddish chestnut; it is graduated and the feathers lack barbs on the ends giving a spiny appearance. Their chin is brownish gray and the rest of their underparts dull olivaceous brown. Their iris is orange to reddish brown to brown, their maxilla blackish to dark fuscous, their mandible grayish horn or pinkish with a blackish tip, and their legs and feet brownish olive to greenish gray. Juveniles have an olive-brown crown, dull rufous edges on the wing coverts, an ochraceous wash on the throat and breast, and sometimes a narrow buff supercilium. Compared to the nominate, subspecies C. e. griseigularis has a brighter, more cinnamon, tone to the central tail feathers and a grayer breast; in the southern part of its range the breast is grayer, the crown darker, and the back less reddish than those of the more northerly individuals. Subspecies C. e. rufigenis has more extensive rufous on the face than the nominate and entirely rufous central tail feathers.

Subspecies C. e. rufigenis of the red-faced spinetail is the northernmost. It is found in the mountains of Costa Rica and western Panama. Subspecies C. e. griseigularis is found in extreme eastern Panama, the Western Andes of Colombia as far south as Nariño Department, the west slope of Colombia's Central Andes as far south as Quindío Department, and the Serranía de San Lucas in northern Colombia. The nominate subspecies is found in the Andes of western Ecuador south to Azuay Province and in the coastal Cordillera de Mache. The red-faced spinetail mostly inhabits lower to mid-elevation subtropical montane forest and woodlands including mature secondary forest. In coastal Ecuador it occurs locally in tropical and deciduous forest. In Costa Rica it occurs between 700 and 2,000 m (2,300 and 6,600 ft) of elevation, in Panama between 1,200 and 2,300 m (3,900 and 7,500 ft), in Colombia between 800 and 2,000 m (2,600 and 6,600 ft), and in Ecuador mostly between 700 and 1,500 m (2,300 and 4,900 ft) but occurs almost to sea level in the Cordillera de Mache.

The red-faced spinetail feeds mostly on arthropods but also includes protein corpuscles from Cecropia trees in its diet. It forages singly or in pairs and usually as part of a mixed-species feeding flock. It mainly feeds in the forest's middle levels but also more widely from the understorey to the subcanopy. It gleans prey from bark, moss, dead leaves, and debris while hitching along small branches; it often hangs upside down to catch prey.