Fasciated Antshrike

Cymbilaimus lineatus

eBird gives this description for the Fasciated Antshrike:  Antshrikes have proportionally large, flat heads and large, hooked bills, and they often cock their tails down. Fasciated Antshrike is widespread through Central and South America. Male is finely barred black-and-white all over with a more solid black cap. Female similar but with buffier ground color and rufous cap. Most often seen in pairs, and often moves higher than other antshrike species, at middle levels or even the canopy of thick edges and tangles. Can be difficult to get a clear view. Listen for series of mournful rising whistled notes.

The Birds of the World website gives this descriptive information about this bird:  The Fasciated Antshrike is found widely, from southeast Honduras to northwest Venezuela and south through Colombia to northwest Ecuador, as well as across virtually all of Amazonia and the Guiana Shield. It is a large-bodied, generally sluggish, sexually dimorphic antshrike; males have a black crown and otherwise wholly black and white-barred plumage, with red eyes, while females possess a russet crown, while the remainder of the plumage is barred dark brown and yellowish brown, and again the rides are red. The bill is heavy with a relatively strongly hooked tip. The Fasciated Antshrike forages, mostly for large insects, in the midstory of tropical lowland forest, principally below 800 m but less regularly up to 1600 m, and although singles or pairs may be found alone, the species is also frequently observed within mixed-species flocks.

I met my first Fasciated Antshrike on my birding trip to Costa Rica with Tropical Birding Tours.  We were eating lunch at the La Selva Dining Hall a little after noon on February  6, 2023, when we spotted this bird foraging in a bush right next to our table.  The bird was relatively cooperative and I was able to take some fairly decent photographs of this distinctive looking bird.