Key Identification Features
- The most critical habitat feature for this species is a tangled understory that contains abundant stands of South American mountain bamboo (Chusquea).
- Adults of the nominate subspecies have a cinnamon forehead, a distinct white supercilium, and gray-brown upper parts.
- This species has distinctive long crown feathers that it frequently erects into a crest, which may even bend forward, and it also has a long tail that it holds cocked upward.
- It has a thick bill, a habit of holding its tail cocked, and disproportionately large feet—the feature that gives the species its scientific name.
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