Black-dotted piculet Foraging birds may repeat the song a few times and then fall silent for several minutes. Birds of this species forage in pairs, often widely separated, or alone. They occasionally join mixed-species flocks. They often "hitch sideways along branches," and they peck or drill like woodpeckers in rotting wood and at broken ends of branches. The taxonomy of "Picumnus" is controversial, and this taxon has been considered conspecific with the white-bellied piculet, conspecific with the golden-spangled piculet, and a synonym (incorrect name) of a subspecies of the scaled piculet ("P. squamulatus obsoletus"). Here it is considered a separate species following
Tawny piculet with white. In other regards, the sexes are similar; the cheeks and neck are tawny and the ear coverts brown. There is a slight white moustachial stripe and white streaking above and behind the eye. The throat is cream, and the breast and belly are yellowish-brown, sometimes with white streaking on the breast. The wings are brown and the upper tail blackish, except for the central feathers which are white. The beak and legs are grey and the iris rufous, with a greyish ring of bare skin round the eye. The tawny piculet is endemic to the Amazon rainforest of