Birding: Baltimore orioles, a gem in anyone's backyard

One of the most delightful signs of spring is the appearance and unmatched sound of the Baltimore oriole. There are not many birds like the oriole.

This spring, I've been lucky to spot a few in my yard, flashing their gorgeous, fiery colors. I asked Mark Spreyer, ornithologist for the Stillman Nature Center – South Barrington, what makes Baltimore orioles so popular among birdwatchers.

Spreyer said orioles first have a "beautiful song [that] sounds like a flute or whistle," adding he personally believes the oriole's rich songs are rivaled only by the melodies of rose-breasted grosbeaks or robins.

"Second, their orange and black color is unusual," Spreyer said. "The only other bird that has these colors is the smaller redstart warbler."

Spreyer added orioles have the ability to build a "ridiculous nest."

"It looks like a sock, hanging on the end of a branch," Spreyer said.

Spreyer's comment made me think of a memorable time I had as a boy, watching a female Baltimore oriole spend about a week anchoring her nest to the tip of a graceful, bending bough of an elm tree.

With the aid of binoculars, I marveled at how the oriole used her long, slender beak to weave plant fibers, horse hair, fishing line, cellophane wrappers and whatever else she and her mate could find and create the amazing sock-like nest Spreyer mentioned.

"The oriole's beak is not unlike a starling's," Spreyer said. "It's built to pry open things."

For example, Spreyer said the starling is a ground-feeder, using its beak to probe and capture cutworms and grubs, while the oriole uses its beak to penetrate fruit and eat pulp and nectar.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology's "All About Birds" website, an excellent birding resource, identifies this beak activity as "gaping."

"The oriole stabs the closed bill into soft fruits, then opens their mouths to cut a juicy swath from which they drink the nectar with their brushy-tipped tongues," the website stated.

Baltimore orioles take their name from Lord Baltimore, founder of the colony of Maryland, who had the same striking orange and black colors in his family coat of arms.

Because they overlap the range of the Bullock's oriole in the Central Plains, Baltimore orioles occasionally hybridize or intermingle with them, causing scientists, at one time to call Baltimore orioles "Northern orioles."

But that's changed now. Due to genetic testing in the 1990's, ornithologists have definitively separated the two birds, now calling them by their rightful names.

How do you attract Baltimore orioles to your backyard?

"Put out fruit – a half section of orange or tiny amount of grape jelly," Spreyer said.

"[Fruit] attracts catbirds, too," he added with a smile.

Bill Hobbs, a birding enthusiast and Lakeland College instructor, writes from his home in Wisconsin. Hobbs has relocated from Barrington, Ill. Contact him with comments, bird sightings and suggestions at whobbs246@gmail.com.