Varzea piculet Snethlage who collected birds in Brazil for two decades. The specific name refers to ""várzea"", the Brazilian name for the seasonally flooded forested area close to the Amazon River. There are no subspecies. This bird occasionally hybridises with the white-barred piculet "(Picumnus cirratus)". The varzea piculet is a small species, some in length. The male differs from the female in having variable amounts of red on the fore and mid-crown; this red patch is the result of the crown feathers having broad red tips, and the rest of the crown in males and the whole crown in females is black
Orinoco piculet feathers are brown tipped with green, and the tail is black, the two central feathers having white inner webs and the outer feathers having a white bar near the tip. The beak is blackish and the legs grey. The call is a thin "seep-seep" and the song a rather longer suite of similar notes. The Orinoco piculet is endemic to eastern Colombia and northwestern Brazil, and is likely to be present also in the adjacent part of southern Venezuela. Its habitat is open tropical humid rainforest, gallery forest, wooded savannah and clumps of trees and scrub at altitudes of up