This ground-dwelling sparrow uses forest edges and coffee plantations in Central America. The male has a white face, dark forehead, and rufous crown.
The adult male has a dark gray bill, a white face, a blackish forehead, olive-brown upperparts, a rufous crown and hindneck, and white underparts. Juveniles are browner above, yellower below, and have a duller head pattern.
It inhabits understory at tropical and deciduous montane or evergreen forest edges, secondary forest, and coffee plantations. It searches on or near the ground and in leaf litter for arthropods and seeds.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.