The eye is placed high and far back on the head, and the beak is long with a flexible tip to extract worms and other invertebrates from the soil.

[2] Believed to feed at night or at dusk in areas with thick moss and foliage where it possibly feeds on worms and other invertebrates These birds fly in a wide circuit over the forest, giving a loud, metallic, rattling `pip-pip-pip-pip-pip` interspersed by very quiet grunts.

This species is restricted to mountain forests (over 1000 meters above sea level) on the islands of Mindanao (four mountaintops) and Luzon (center and north) in the Philippines.

[1] As it occurs in rugged and inaccessible mountains, this has allowed a large portion of its habitat to remain intact.

However, there it is still affected by habitat loss through deforestation, mining, land conversion and slash-and-burn - just not to the same extent as lowland forest.