Adults of both sexes have a buffy or cinnamon-tinged ochre head including the long pointed crest, chin, throat, and neck.

Their upperparts are cinnamon-buff to orange-ochre with black markings that vary in shape from round to heart-like.

Their tail feathers are black with pale buffish edges or bars on the outermost pair.

Their underparts are sooty, often with buff-cinnamon feather edges, and the rear flanks and undertail coverts have wide cinnamon to buff bars.

One population is found along the south side of the Amazon River from western Pará to the Atlantic coast.

It generally forages at the forest's middle level to its canopy but also on the ground, capturing insects by gleaning, probing, pecking, and hammering.