Black-winged Saltator

The black-winged saltator is about 20.5 cm (8.1 in) long and weighs 44 to 60 g (1.6 to 2.1 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies have a mostly black head with a long and wide white supercilium and a small white patch at the rear of the ear coverts. Their upperparts are bright olive-green. Their wings and tail are mostly dull black with faint greenish edges on the tertials and often on the greater coverts. Their chin and throat are white, their breast dove-gray, their belly gray-white with a greenish tinge on the side, and their vent orange-buff. Their lower throat and breast often have a buff wash. Subspecies S. a. caniceps has a mostly gray crown, mostly olive-green tertials, paler undertail coverts, and no buff wash on the throat and breast. Both subspecies have an orange or brown iris, a thick blackish bill, and gray or brown legs and feet.

The black-winged saltator has a disjunct distribution. The nominate subspecies is found in Colombia on both sides of the Western Andes and the western slope of the Central Andes, both from Antioquia Department south to Nariño Department, and into western Esmeraldas Province in far northwestern Ecuador. Subspecies S. a. caniceps is found along the western slope of Colombia's Eastern Andes in Boyacá and Cundinamarca departments and separately along the western slope of the Andes in Ecuador to extreme northern El Oro and Loja provinces. The black-winged saltator primarily inhabits the canopy and edges of humid to wet primary and mature secondary forest. It also is found in shrubby clearings and in plantations. In Colombia's Central and Western Andes it tends to prefer areas on the drier end of the humid to west continuum. In Colombia it ranges in elevation between 600 and 2,300 m (2,000 and 7,500 ft) and in Ecuador is mostly below 1,500 m (4,900 ft).

The black-winged saltator's diet has not been studied but is believed to be mostly fruit. It forages in the forest's upper levels, often as part of a mixed-species feeding flock.