Question for the birders: What species is this?
By adamg - 7/17/09 - 10:48 am
Just spotted in our backyard (and, yes, of course, I happen to have my camera handy when I work on the porch). Since I grew up in a place where the wildlife seemed to consist of pigeons, squirrels and mice, naturally, I have no clue what it is.
UPDATE: It's a Baltimore Oriole (scouting out the area while the Sox play the Bluejays?).
Comments
I know!
That's a young Baltimore Oriole!
Yay, Baltimore!
Baltimore Oriole ID page
Thanks
For some reason, I thought Orioles were mostly black with just a bit of orange. Like I said, what I don't know about birds ...
They're not only unusually
They're not only unusually dressy, they also have one of the sweetest calls of any local songbird. Once you've heard it, it's unmistakable.
Feed it!
If you'd like to encourage it to stick around, put some orange wedges out in a feeder.
Prunus Serotina
Look at the tree it's in - Black Cherry. Good grub, so to speak.
That's a black cherry tree?
Huh! You learn something every day (or in this case, two things every day).
I'll have to go take a closer look later: Those "cherries" might actually be berries from this awful kudzu-like ivy that is taking over the entire backyard - except for the area it's ceded to the stinging nettles.
vine
Birds void consumed cherry seeds in numbers. Everywhere.
So if you didn't notice it before, then I must be wrong.
See any nests?
Orioles are not only cool to see and cool to hear, but they probably have one of the coolest nests in the suburban bird kingdom:
I love the way they build these teardrop hanging nests out on the ends of branches.
Not an expert, but it looks
Not an expert, but it looks like a Baltimore oriole: http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/567/overview/Baltimore_Oriole.aspx
I thought they changed the
I thought they changed the name to Northern Oriole back around the 1980s.
They did briefly
Check out the "Life History" tab on the link I posted.
They changed it by combining 2 Orioles species into the Northern Oriole, but ultimately split it back up because they saw genetic differences that made them much more different than originally thought.
And here's a bobwhite
In Gloucester.