This small forest bird is endemic to the Chatham Islands. It gleans small invertebrates from leaves and crevices in branches and trunks, and sometimes feeds on the ground.
The head and upperparts are olive-brown; the underparts are off-white, with pale yellowish flanks and undertail. Males have a prominent white forehead, eyebrows, throat, and underparts. Females lack the white forehead, and juveniles have olive-grey upperparts and yellower underparts.
It lives in forests and gleans invertebrates from leaves and crevices in trunks and branches. It sometimes feeds on the ground; on Chatham Island it forages mainly in the canopy.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.