Late yesterday afternoon, at the back door, looking out at the row of little trees by the fence, I see a goldfinch… No, it’s an oriole. An adult female hooded oriole, in fact. John, a birder who lives a few blocks north of us, had mentioned seeing them in his yard. They’re supposed to be a lot rarer here than northern/Bullock’s orioles, but every now and then we see one. It must have been 15 years ago that we found a nest, not in a thatch palm where they’re s’posed to be found, but in a curbside sycamore that got cut down the next year for a school expansion. Last year or the year before, we had a trio of juvie males come through, scoping out the hummingbird feeder maybe.
Like them, this one came and went—spoke not a word but flew over the house and disappeared. Early for the kids to be all fledged; I wonder if there’s a nest somewhere close. However, we haven’t heard any orioles singing here this Spring. Maybe they nest earlier than the Bullock’s orioles out on Mines Road.
Once upon a time, hooded orioles were rare enough to show up on the Rare Bird Alert—we took buses over to some palm in San Francisco years ago and were excited when our patience gave us first looks at the bird, a bit out of normal range but nesting. Now I wonder if they’re slipping in, adapting to cities, getting local.
Posted by: Ron Sullivan
1 | By: mary on June 14, 2004 at 04:47 AM
For a couple of years, we got a hooded oriole regularly in our yard in Fremont. A neighbor has a washingtonia palm, and I’m sure it nested there. I thought it was a huge goldfinch at first, too. It loved our hummingbird feeder.
Here he is:
http://www.alamedacreek.net/pics/oriolesharp-med.jpg
What a patch of sunshine. . . .