The Nature of Things

I hung my oriole feeder and waited for the orioles to show up. And very soon a bird did show up. Wow, that is one funny looking oriole! Wait, that isn't an oriole! No, it is the boss of the backyard, the Northern Mockingbird . After a while, an Baltimore Oriole did actually come to investigate. This is a first year male who hasn't yet morphed into the gaudy orange and black feathers of the adult males.  It didn't take him long to get around to checking out the feeder. This is a second sub-adult male enjoying one of the orange halves. So far, I've seen four or five orioles around the feeders and they have all been sub-adult males. I've concluded that most likely the mature adults have already passed through, maybe even before I got my feeder hung. Perhaps they were early this year, like everything else.  The orioles are no match for this bossy mockingbird who has chased at least a couple of birds away from the feeder. He doesn't seem too interested in the oran...

The Baltimore Orioles came to town today. Or, that is, they arrived in my backyard today. I had heard over the weekend that they had been seen along the coast, so yesterday, I filled one of my oriole feeders with their preferred jelly and oranges and hung it along with my other feeders in the backyard. And, right on cue today, there they were! Male... ...and female. Beauties, both of them. Today's orioles were hungry for the jelly that I had put out and not so much for the oranges. Perhaps the jelly gives them a quicker boost after their long flight from South America. I don't see Baltimore Orioles in my yard every spring, but when I do, it usually begins the first week in May. These are just a little early, but that seems to be typical of migrant birds these days as many are making their trips earlier because of the warming climate. My little garden sun is smiling because he has some orange company in the yard once again.

(Cross-posted from Backyard Birder .) My garden is currently experiencing a remarkable invasion of  Baltimore Orioles . There is a smattering of  Orchard Orioles  as well, but mostly it's Baltimores. It started last Friday when I  noticed the first one  in the yard. After that, I filled my oriole feeder with nectar and put an orange half on it and hung it on a crape myrtle tree near my patio. Since then I've had a constant stream of the brilliant visitors. My next door neighbor has hung her oriole feeder as well and, between our two yards, it is common to see a dozen or more of the brightly colored birds at once. I find this quite amazing since I've never had more than one or two orioles at a time on migration in the past. Whatever confluence of events has worked to bring these visitors my way this spring, I am enjoying them tremendously and when I think of this season it will be as the "Time of the Orioles."  It's not uncommon to see several birds waiting ...