19”( 48cm) ; 255g. long bill rather heavy body held horizontally. Head black with white superciliaries and malar stripes; throat white; neck and breast brown, vermiculated with black; belly white, upperparts barred with olive –brown and blackish; upper surface of wing with striking “sun” pattern in chestnut, yellowish –buff , black, white, olive, and gray(revealed when wings spread); tail marbled with gray and white, with 2 broad bands of chestnut and black. Iris red; eyelids yellow; bill orange with black culmen; legs orange.
Habits Prefers swift –flowing , rocky streams but sometimes on river sandbars, slowflowing creeks, or swamps pools, generally in forested country; alone or in pairs; hops and flits from rock to rock with great agility and wades in shallows, plucking small frogs, crayfish, crabs insects, from rocks or water; flies with 1 or 2 rather deep, heavy flaps and a long glide on flat wings.
Status Resident in diminishing numbers on Caribbean and S Pacific slopes, mostly in foothills and adjacent lowlands, ca.300 -4000ft (100-1200m), sometimes to 5000ft(1500m) in upper Coto Brus valley.
Range S Mexico to NW Peru and Amazonian Brazil.
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