Primary tropical rain forests are being rapidly perforated with new edges via roads  logging  and pastures  and vast areas of secondary forest accumulate following abandonment of agricultural lands To determine how insectivorous Amazonian understory birds respond to edges between primary rain forest and three age classes of secondary forest  we radio-tracked two woodcreepers (Glyphorynchus spirurus  N = 17  Xiphorhynchus pardalotus  N = 18) and a terrestrial antthrush (Formicarius colma  N = 19)