From Opus

Photo by bobsofpa.
Location: Bosque Birdwatchers RV Park, San Antoni, New Mexico.USA

Icterus bullockii

[edit] Identification

17-19cm
Male

• Deep orange
• Black wings, back, and tail tips
• White wing patches
• Black cap
• Black line through the eye
• Black throat patches
  

Female

• Grey-brown upper parts
• Yellow throat and breast
• Whitish underneath
• Two white wing bars
  

First-year male: black throat and eye-line

[edit] Distribution

Breeds from southern British Columbia, southern Saskatchewan, Montana, and southwestern North Dakota south to western Texas and northern Mexico. Winters in Mexico south to Costa Rica. Accidental vagrant in the eastern United States and Venezuela.

[edit] Taxonomy

The Bullock's Oriole was once combined with the eastern counterpart Baltimore Oriole as a single species, the Northern Oriole, because they began to interbreed on the Great Plains, when the two forms extended their ranges and met. This is in spite of these two forms not being each others closest relatives.

[edit] Subspecies

Juvenile male
Photo by digishooter
Wofford Heights, Kern County, California, USA, August 2008

Two subspecies are recognized^[1]:

• I. b. bullockii:

• south-western Canada to northern Mexico, migrates to north-western Costa Rica

• I. b. parvus:

• Extreme south-western USA to northern Baja California and north-western Sonora, migrates to Guerrero

[edit] Habitat

Riparian, creek willow and cottonwood, scrub and cactus, Chaparral, mixed oak and pine woodlands.

[edit] Behaviour

[edit] Diet

The diet includes insects, berries and nectar.

[edit] Breeding

The nest, located in a tree, is a pendulous basket, made from hair, twine, grass, and wool, lined with plant-down, hair, or feathers and suspended from a thin branch, overhanging over water. The 4 to 5 eggs are incubated by the female for about 11 days; the young fledge about 14 days later.

[edit] References

1. Clements, JF. 2011. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to August 2011. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0801445019. Spreadsheet available at http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/downloadable-clements-checklist
2. Birdweb
3. BF Member observations
4. Birdforum thread discussing the Taxonomy of New World Orioles
5. Birdforum thread discussing the hybridization in "Northern Orioles"

• List of references

[edit] External Links