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Guess who showed up at my feeder this morning? (1 Viewer)

-DJ

New member
Hi All:

This is my first official post. I need a little help with the ID of the attached file. I'm speculating that it is a Yellow-Throated Vireo but I'm not sure. Any confirmatin or clarification would be appreciated. He seemed to really go for the grape jelly I placed in the dish at my feeding station. I snapped this picture of him this morning at breakfast.
 

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The beak resembles an oriole beak. So that leaves us with a baltimore oriole, either a first year male, or a drab 1st year female. the pattern on the back and shoulders leads me to say that this is a drab first-year female.
 
Ah... yes the oriole. The beak was the feature that had me the most perplexed. Thanks for the information. We have had a mature male coming around the last few days. That's why we've put the orange halves out. So perhaps this may be his mate.
 
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Hey there DJ and a very warm welcome to you from the staff here at BirdForum.

Lucky you to have orioles at your feeders. I seldom see these guys unless I am out in the woods. What else are you seeing?
 
gthang said:
the pattern on the back and shoulders leads me to say that this is a drab first-year female.

I do agree on calling it a Baltimore Oriole. But what feature do you look at to justify calling it a first-year female? Don't misunderstand me, it could very well be there, I just can't seem to find it! Especially as ad. females can be somewhat variable, that being combined with the "difficult" light on the photo.

- and careful: Female Orchard is quite similar...
 
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Agreed! There wouldn't be any 1st year females this early. Avg. date of nests with young in MN is May 26th. This of course assumes you are still in Maine?

Hal
 
Hal said:
Agreed! There wouldn't be any 1st year females this early. Avg. date of nests with young in MN is May 26th. This of course assumes you are still in Maine?

Hal
Hi Hal,

'First year' means a bird hatched summer 2003, the period between losing its juvenile plumage at 2-3 months old, and acquiring adult plumage at the age of about 14-15 months age

Michael
 
Michael Frankis said:
'First year' means a bird hatched summer 2003, the period between losing its juvenile plumage at 2-3 months old, and acquiring adult plumage at the age of about 14-15 months age

Completely true, but what do you think? Is the bird on this photo first-year? As said, I just can't see what justifies calling it that, but obviously; if anyone can see what I can't, please do inform me..!

Anyway, it sure is a nice bird to have at your feeders, they do indeed seem to love oranges ;)
 
I'm not sure that's a Baltimore female. If that's an medium-sized orange, it looks closer to Orchard oriole size. What looks like a predominance of yellow on the belly rather than white, and the yellow rather than orangey coloration of Baltimore, also makes me think more of Orchard.

MN = Minnesota (ME = Maine).

Our Bullock's orioles won't stay off the hummingbird feeders and will peck off one of the flowerettes in order to uncover the larger hole underneath that will accommodate their bigger-than-hummer beaks. Which, of course, just invites even more hairy woodpeckers and house finches to come in for nectar as well. When I've put out oranges, I've never seen a single oriole at them: the Abert's squirrels have learned how to wriggle the halves off the nails and pack 'em up their trees. We find sections of orange peel all over the property. :)

That's a great orange-feeder, DJ -- where'd you buy it, if you don't mind my asking? The squirrels couldn't get 'em off that contraption!

And last but not least, may I add another welcome to BirdForum!
 
Katy Penland said:
I'm not sure that's a Baltimore female. If that's an medium-sized orange, it looks closer to Orchard oriole size. What looks like a predominance of yellow on the belly rather than white, and the yellow rather than orangey coloration of Baltimore, also makes me think more of Orchard.

MN = Minnesota (ME = Maine).

Yes, I know... I don't really wan't to judge a birds size by the orange (large oranges, small oranges etc. etc.) next to it... Anyway, the real reasons why I left out Orchard is that the white wing bar seems very broad for being such. It fits much better with Baltimore. Also (though this is obviously very hard to judge for certain on a photo like this), it does appear to show an orange hue to the colour. Female Baltimore's can actually be very pale, almost as pale female Orchard's. Still, the white wing-bar and slight orange hue, leads me toward Baltimore...
 
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Rasmus Boegh said:
Yes, I know... I don't really wan't to judge a birds size by the orange (large oranges, small oranges etc. etc.) next to it... Anyway, the real reasons why I left out Orchard is that the white wing bar seems very broad for being such. It fits much better with Baltimore. Also (though this is obviously very hard to judge for certain on a photo like this), it does appear to show an orange hue to the colour. Female Baltimore's can actually be very pale, almost as pale female Orchard's. Still, the white wing-bar and slight orange hue, leads me toward Baltimore...
That's the biggest problem for me in trying to ID from photos online: Color calibration differences. On my monitor, this bird has no hint of orange or blue and in fact has a distinct greenish tinge to the yellow, and yellow all over the belly (if the belly being in shadow isn't influencing what would be a white belly for a "drab first-year female" Baltimore [a discussion I'm not qualified to engage so I'll leave that up to others]).

I hear you about the size vis-a-vis the orange, but that's why I wanted to ask DJ how big the fruit was. If it's a large Navel (which can get to be the size of small grapefruit), this is a pretty small bird.

Sibley doesn't mention breadth of wingbar being diagnostic on either spp but it does say that Orchard has "well-defined white wing-bars." Although, having said that, I haven't seen an oriole whose wing-bars were *not* well-defined, frankly. For comparison, Sibley's drawing of the Bullock's male shows a HUGE white patch (not bar) on the wing that the Bullock's males around here don't have; their upper wingbar is just slightly broader than the lower bar, not run together as Sibley's drawing would lead one to believe.

Hey, DJ, any chance you have other shots of this same bird in perhaps slightly less contrasty light, or from a more frontal angle?
 
Katy Penland said:
Sibley doesn't mention breadth of wingbar being diagnostic on either spp but it does say that Orchard has "well-defined white wing-bars."

No guide incl. Sibley mentions every single ID feature. Regarding the white wingbar/patch (or whatever you want to call it) I am just judging from the many indiduals I have seen+loads of photos. From that the wingbar/shoulder-patch of Orchard seems much less distinct, far from as broad as in Baltimore. I don't know if this is infact a useable feature to exclude Orchard, but it has sure seemed to be so on all the individuals I have seen, and, not at least, the photo's I have found on the internet.

Here's a bunch of links:

First, female/ young Orchard's:

http://www.ejphoto.com/orchard_oriole_page.htm
http://www.julia.coolfreepages.com/juliahome/oror.htm
http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/Photo/Images/h5060p2.jpg
http://www.moorenature.com/images/pages/orchardorioleM(f)0502_jpg.htm
http://users.mrl.uiuc.edu/petrov/birds/orchardFM.HTML
http://www.rhythmbird.net/localbirds/album177.html
http://home.teleport.com/~jorrie/Orchard-Oriole.html

...and, female/young Baltimore's:

http://www.backyardbirdcam.com/gallery/oriole-f.htm
http://www.julia.coolfreepages.com/juliahome/images/baor.jpg
http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/Photo/Images/h5070p4.jpg
http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/Photo/Images/h5070p2.jpg
 
This is the area of the oriole I was referring to when I stated that the bird in question is a first-year female.
 

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Great links, Rasmus, thanks for those. You've convinced me the bird in question is a Baltimore's. One thing these links showed when being able to look at several different angles of each species is how much more short-bodied and compact the Orchard is compared to the longer and seemingly more slender Baltimore. I then went back to the original photo of the bird posted here and sucked it into software to brighten it a bit to see the underbelly's color, and it's clearly got quite a bit of white on it, which Orchard doesn't have.

BTW, I didn't intend to sound defensive of anything I wrote. I just quoted from Sibley because I'm trained to cite sources and that's what he happened to say re: wing-bars. My intent certainly wasn't to infer that he's the ultimate authority or that he includes all field marks which, as I agree with you, no field guide can. On this Forum where there are many extremely experienced birders (and I'm certainly not one of those) as well as (we're told) some world-renowned ornithologists using pseudonyms, I'd rather quote a source so everyone will know where I'm coming from (if it's other than from my own field experience).
 
gthang said:
This is the area of the oriole I was referring to when I stated that the bird in question is a first-year female.

How does that part differ from pale ad. females? Just look at the ad. female on this link (also given in my previous thread):

http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i5070id.html

Look at the right part of the screen. It shows (among others) both an ad. and an imm. female (click on the photo and a larger version appears). As said, female Baltimore's can be quite pale...


Katy Penland said:
BTW, I didn't intend to sound defensive of anything I wrote.

I didn't intend to sound "counter-defensive" either... Sorry, if it appeared that way...
 
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Great debate! IMHO this bird is clearly a Baltimore's, the wing bars clearly point to galbula. I've seen loads of Baltimores and enough Orchards at home in CR to be quite sure on this one.
Eduardo
 
Squaw Creek NWR, near Mound City, Missouri, must be the "Orchard Oriole Capital" of the world (they seem to be all over the place). Both the Baltimore and Orchard Orioles nest in Missouri. I usually see double digit numbers of these two species whenever I go out birding this time of year. The bird in the photo, in my opinion, is a Baltimore Oriole. (I don't think Orchard Orioles even come to the oranges.) An Orchard Oriole would be much slimmer and have a "yellowish" tinge rather than the "orangish" coloration of the bird in the photo.
 
Larry Lade said:
(I don't think Orchard Orioles even come to the oranges.)
Interesting. I know I've sure had no luck attracting Bullock's orioles to oranges in our yard. Once upon a time, I hung a feeder outside with "oriole (citrus) nectar" in it hoping to lure the Bullock's away from the hummer feeders, and they ignored it and continued using the hummer nectar.

Are Baltimores the only orioles who *are* attracted to oranges? Anybody know?
 
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