By Jeanne Church
I look forward to the return of the Baltimore orioles every year. For the last 35 years, my husband and I have intermittently noted their return in our well-worn Peterson’s Field Guide. Last year, our first oriole arrived on the twenty seventh of April, one of our earliest sightings! Most years, they haven’t shown up until the first or second week of May. It’s entirely possible, however, that those “late-comers” were already in the area but hadn’t chosen our yard to visit.
The trick is in the timing when it comes to attracting Baltimore orioles. I just recently learned that my jelly feeders should be out no later than April 25, a week or so before I usually get them ready. Baltimore orioles won’t come for seeds and nuts like most of my other birds, but they will come for grape jelly, oranges, mealworms, and nectar. They will also take fresh fruit, like dark purple grapes, mulberries, and dark red cherries—the riper the better. If I put my feeders out sooner than I have in the past, I’m more likely to attract those early arrivals!
Not everyone is as fond of orioles as I am. These birds can do significant damage to fruit crops like raspberries, mulberries, cherries, oranges, and bananas and are considered pests by many fruit growers. In the orioles’ defense, they also consume a multitude of insects and other critters that are harmful to our trees, including tent caterpillars, spongy moth caterpillars, fall webworms, spiny elm caterpillars, and the larvae inside plant galls. They also eat beetles, crickets, aphids, grasshoppers, moths, flies, and spiders. By feeding on large quantities of larvae and insects, Baltimore orioles actually protect a great many of our trees from extensive damage, thus providing a great ecological service!
I had never given much thought to why these birds were called Baltimore orioles. I had just assumed that they were named after the city of Baltimore. The truth is, Baltimore orioles were named after England’s 17th century Baltimore family whose coat of arms had the same bold orange and black colors as the plumage of these attractive birds. The Baltimore family also gave their name to the city.
The “oriole” part of the bird’s name comes from the Latin “oriolus” meaning “the golden one,” which was originally intended for the Eurasian golden oriole. When early European settlers arrived in North America, they often named the birds they saw after ones they remembered from home, even though the birds might not be identical. In this particular instance of the Eurasian golden oriole and the Baltimore oriole, they aren’t even genetically related.
The most interesting thing about Baltimore orioles, I think, is their nest. It is an engineering masterpiece that is constructed entirely by the female. The male oriole will occasionally offer assistance by collecting nest materials, but he will leave the job of weaving the nest together completely to the female.
To build the nest, female orioles use whatever nesting materials are available, including grass, strips of grapevine bark, wool, and horsehair. Orioles have also been known to use artificial fibers such as cellophane, string, yarn, and fishing line. Sometimes, the female will even take fibers from a previous nest to build a new one. Prior to the invention of the automobile, oriole nests were made almost exclusively of horsehair!
The female oriole begins her complicated construction job by anchoring the nest to a few small twigs on a branch high up in a mature deciduous tree. This precarious placement will keep the eggs and the babies relatively safe from climbing predators, nest robbers, and brood parasites. She anchors the nest by hanging long fibers over the end of a small twig and uses her bill to weave them together. Once the initial fibers are secure, she will meticulously weave hundreds of additional fibers to form a pendulous, purse-like pouch.
When the basic pouch shape is finished, the female oriole will line the inside with soft, downy materials such as milkweed seed plumes, feathers, and animal fur. The completed nest will be 3-4 inches deep and about 4 inches wide at the bottom. The whole process can take up to two weeks for her to finish! One female oriole was observed spending 40 hours building a nest with about 10,000 stitches and thousands of knots, all done with just her beak! This seemingly delicate cradle can hold up to seven eggs and last for a year or more beyond its intended purpose—a testament to the skill and dedication of female orioles. Ironically, Baltimore orioles only use this woven masterpiece once.
Overall, Baltimore oriole populations are stable but, like most of the birds in our lives, their continued success is always fragile. They are vulnerable to a host of man-made threats, including deforestation, habitat loss, pesticides, and climate change. If we want to continue having all these wonderful creatures in our lives, we cannot be complacent about what we are doing to our environment.
What puts them at risk, puts us all at risk.
Ode to Oreo the Oriole
By Dr. Ronald R. Spink, DVM
The day we got him he was a tiny bird with a big mouth
We all knew that someday in the future he’d be headed south.
But for now even trying to tell what kind of bird he was
Was a befuddling job since he was pink skin and fuzz …
Days went by and our baby grew bigger and stronger
The fuzz disappeared and feathers grew longer and longer.
The chirp, chirp, chirp for a meal was his constant cry
He was growing and growing to be quite a guy.
The day we released him a cold rain blew in
He stayed out all night, my hopes grew dim.
But a smile and tear came onto my face
When he flew back to his cage, his eating place.
The morning I called and I called, he took quite a while to come
His feathers were in and his orange color was awesome.
I talked and he chattered back but ate very little
Mother Nature was feeding him, he was fit as a fiddle.
Tonight I called and called and pleaded and pleaded
He didn’t show up, I knew I was no longer needed.
The tear came back but my heart filled with joy
The day had come, he’s FREE, he’s a Great big boy!
PS. I miss the little fella
Thank you, Dr. Ron, for sharing this poem with our readers.