The bird's upper parts are dark sooty-brown and the underparts are pale buff with small black streaks on the breast.

In Oaxaca breeding is from April to June while in Panama calling most frequent from mid-April to July, i.e. from the onset of wet season.

This display can be performed while voicing low grunts and guttural clicks[5] or silently[citation needed].

This is an insectivorous species and its food includes grasshoppers, cicadas and beetles; occasionally also small lizards and nestlings.

It has a stylized terrestrial foraging behaviour which includes rattling sounds made by vibrating its plumage and bill clapping while the bird stands with body, wing and tail bobbing before lunging forward with several short steps, before pecking in the leaf litter for potential prey.