Spot-crowned Woodcreeper

The Spot-crowned Woodcreeper (Lepidocolaptes affinis), is a passerine bird which breeds in the tropical New World from central Mexico in the east, the Sierra Madre Orientals, to northern Panama.

This woodcreeper is found in mountains from 1000 m to the timberline in mossy, epiphyte-laden forest and adjacent semi-open woodland and clearings. It builds a leaf-lined nest 0.6 to 8 m up in a tree cavity or old woodpecker or barbet hole, and lays two white eggs.

The Spot-crowned Woodcreeper is typically 21.5 cm long, and weighs 35 g. It has a spotted crown, olive brown upperparts with fine streaking on the upper back, a chestnut rump, wings and tail, and heavily streaked olive-brown underparts. The bill is slender and decurved. Young birds are duller with less distinct streaking and crown spots.

Spot-crowned Woodcreeper is very similar to Streak-headed Woodcreeper, Lepidocolaptes souleyetii, but is larger, has a spotted crown, and is the only woodcreeper found at high altitudes.

Spot-crowned Woodcreeper feeds on spiders and insects, creeping up trunks and extracting its prey from the bark or mosses. It will join mixed-species feeding flocks.

The call is a squeaky deeik and the song is a trill and rattle deeeeeeah hihihihihi.