Plain-brown Woodcreeper

Sighting
Plain-brown Woodcreeper was only seen on this single occasion in Trinidad along the entrance road to the Asa Wright Centre. It stayed still for some time allowing photos to be taken. It is unusual to see any bird in bamboo in Trinidad which seems to have little environmental value.

Species
Plain-brown Woodcreeper Dendrocincla fuliginosa is drab even by woodcreeper standards. As its name implies, it lacks the streaking shown by most of its relatives and is plain brown above and below. The bill is longish and straight. It is an insectivore which feeds on ants and other insects. It feeds low in trees, on the trunk or foliage, but rarely on the ground. It will follow columns of army ants, often in groups of up to a dozen birds.

Status and distribution
It is a species of least concern with a decreasing population in its large breeding range of some 12 million square kilometres. It breeds in the tropical New World from Honduras through South America to northern Argentina, and in Trinidad and Tobago. It is a common Trinidad resident favouring deciduous forest at all but the highest elevations. It is absent on Tobago. There are eleven subspecies of which D. f. meruloides is found on Trinidad and in northern Venezuela.

References
Asa Wright Centre; BirdLife; Wikipedia; World Bird Names; Kenefick, M., Restall, R., and Hayes, F. (2015) Birds of Trinidad and Tobago, Bloomsbury Publishing, page 180.

Photograph
In extremely dark forest conditions at 1/500th of a second, f5.6 and ISO 16,000 using spot metering and +1 exposure compensation but I have no idea why I chose the latter setting. The ISO is the highest I have ever used but the bird was very dark in between the stands of large bamboo, hence the noise which is apparent in the photo.