Its plumage is rufous brown and exhibits black shaft streaks.

Its diet consists of geckos, tree frogs and insects (e.g. locusts).

Due to the clearing of the mountainous cloud forests and introduced alien animals, like rats, cats, and barn owls the population had dropped so drastically that it was thought to be extinct by 1906.

In 1959 it was rediscovered by French naturalist Phillippe Loustau-Lalanne in a mountainous cloud forest at an altitude of 200 m (660 ft) a.s.l.

Due to the lack of information about the population this species was long regarded as critically endangered by the IUCN.