Rufous piculet creepers, bamboos and dead and rotting trees, often near streams. The rufous piculet is an active bird moving singly or in small groups through the lowest storeys of the forest, usually not above from the ground. It forages on trunks and dead branches, on vines, in bushes, among bamboos and in tall grasses. It gleans scrupulously, probing into holes and pulling out insects with its long tongue. It sometimes works its way up a trunk in a crosswise fashion, making little flights so as to turn to face the other way, the several members of a group often working in
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