Bullock’s Oriole
July 12, 2010 Bird House Feeder
It took me dozens of hours of tape over 3 successive Summers to get this little bit of video. The bird is paranoid and cagey to boot and Orioles seem to be a rarity in these parts. I’ve never seen another pair nor any of the offspring of this pair. The Hummingbird feeder and grapes are outside of my kitchen window, but the bird will not tolerate the camera and tripod outside nor in the kitchen. I had to set the gear up in a room adjoining the kitchen and use the zoom. You can see the female flash through the scene as she leaves the far side of the hummingbird feeder. If anyone has any experience with Orioles, I’d love to talk about them.
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Comments (8)
Hummingbirds are fun, entertaining, full of energy and it’s easy to attract hummingbirds.
Very cool! I don’t know about the Bullock’s Oriole, but the Baltimore Oriole is supposed to have a rich, clear whistle-song that you can often hear because he likes to live near people’s houses. And if you know how to whistle, you can imitate his song, and he will sometimes answer you.
Hey Dot, long time no see.
As far as I can tell the Bullock’s doesn’t have a song. It makes this nails-on-the-chalkboard screech though, that seems to intensify with it’s level of irritation with me. He doesn’t like people at all and will take off like a bullet if I come within about 100 feet of him. I once froze and watched him on the top of my 50 ft tall scanner antenna for a few minutes. I took a single step forward and he was gone, just like that.
I like that, “Dot”! Hello, yeah long tima no seea. Well, okay then, get the ole chalkboard out and do the nails-on-the-chalkboard sound effect..and see if he answers that sound back..teeheehee.
I got a good, close up look at the female today, from about 10′ away. She’s as paranoid as he is, might be a little larger and is a nice lemony-yellow and brown. I may try to disguise my gear and with some software I have and my laptop, I could automatically take pics at set intervals. There’s no way to predict when they’ll show up but usually it’s anytime between 10am and noon and again between 6 and 8pm. I could get lucky I suppose.
Try it…I’d like to see her! She sounds cute.
I didn’t know they liked to eat grapes, that’s surprising.
Yeah, grapes, apple, oranges, and JELLY! And they love to drink from hummingbird feeders. They are a bit pricey, about 20 bucks, but there’s also Oriole feeders that are orange in color, have a larger opening to accommodate the Oriole’s bill and little inserts for jelly or grapes. Most will have a spot to slide a half an orange down into the center too. If you put grapes out, you’ll be doing the birds a favor if you cut them into quarters.
Birds are so cool. Thanks for the information, I’ll try setting out some food for them someday. I wonder if there is any Oriole’s here in Humboldt, I guess by setting grapes out that, that would be a good
way to find out. Have you heard of the Southern, California, Bluebird, that Dick Purvis/Sue is saving? Huell Howser/California channel, aired a show about it.
That’s a beautiful color of orange on this Oriole.