Black-crowned Palm-Tanager

The black-crowned palm-tanager is 17 to 18 cm (6.7 to 7.1 in) long and weighs about 24 to 32 g (0.85 to 1.1 oz). The sexes are not particularly dimorphic. The species has a long, strong, sharply pointed bill with a black maxilla, and a blue-gray mandible with a black tip. The adults' head is mostly black with a white patch above the bill, a larger white patch above and beyond its red-brown eye, and a thin arc of white below its eye. Its nape is gray and the rest of the upperparts, including the tail, are bright yellowish olive. Its throat and the middle of the breast are white; the sides of its breast and its flanks, belly, and undertail coverts are gray. Immatures have a dusky gray head instead of black and a buff tinge to the throat.

The black-crowned palm-tanager is found throughout the mainland Dominican Republic (including on Saona Island) and in Haiti (except for the Tiburon Peninsula). It inhabits almost every landscape on Hispaniola, in many forest types from dry to humid and open to dense. It also occurs in rural and urban gardens and parks. In elevation it ranges from sea level to about 2,500 m (8,200 ft) but is most common well below 2,000 m (6,600 ft).

The black-crowned palm-tanager forages in pairs or family groups at all levels of the forest and also sometimes joins mixed-species foraging flocks. Its diet is about 2/3 insects and 1/3 fruit with a small amount of nectar also taken.