An Oriole Spark Bird

Usually we can remember the bird that first caught our eye or ear, opening us to the world of birds. There are probably seeds planted earlier that resonate in our hidden memories when that magic moment occurs, but the experience itself is etched in the mind forever.

It could be a cardinal singing in the yard, or an indigo bunting visiting the feeder. For me it was a real beauty, the Baltimore oriole. It was singing in an apple tree close by when I stepped out of the car one day. The song may have drawn my attention, but it was the color of the oriole that drove a bolt through my eyes into my mind's heart.

Until then it was only a drawing in a book, beautiful, but distant, lost in the ether of the unknown. Here it was close and sensual, full of the energies of living. For the first time in my life I knew that orioles were real, and I was enthralled.

It meant that every other bird in the book was out there somewhere, with the same electric charge of discovery. Since then, the charge has happened countless time, filling me with delight. Even the Baltimore oriole is rediscovered every year in the first few days of May.

It was named after the Baltimores, a family of English nobility whose colors were the same as the bird's. The scientists took away that name from the bird a few years ago, but wisely gave it back. The name is beautiful and appropriate to this oriole.

My yard is the home of a pair of orioles. You will find them wherever there are scattered tall trees. They love to hang their nest from the lowest drooping stems of a weeping willow branch, where it sways in the breeze like an endless lullaby. This cradle rarely falls, for the mother weaves the fibers of the nest to the stems with infinite care and precision.

Sometimes a gale whips a branch from the tree in fall or winter, but it is not likely during the gentle winds of June. The other day I saw a female oriole tugging mightily at some long mossy filaments high in a sycamore tree. They were entwined around a branch in a knot of growing plants, but she braced her spindly legs and ripped them from their unbreakable anchor.

Off she flew, trailing her prize to the chosen nest site. There she will wind the long strings around the tree stems and build a bigger knot that would be her basket bed. It only takes a few days, then she lays the three or four eggs in the bottom of this sling and sits in her rocking castle till the hatching.

She wears a different dress than her mate, dull by contrast, a dingy orange, dirty on the back and wings where the male is ebony. His black forms a hood, but the rest of the body is vibrant orange, broken by dark on the wings and tail. These are the colors of the Baltimores that won me over, put me on my knees as a devotee of birds.

Appreciation for the song came later. When the young are born in that pendulous nest, they soon begin to make an incessant whining sound, begging to be fed. I like to hear it, for it means new birds for the coming years. It ends too soon in the year and so does that father's serenade.

By the end of June, his whistles become rarer and his chatter ceases. There is such a contrast between the harsh rattle of the bird's call and the pure notes of the song, strung together in a random pattern, and varying from individual to individual. The great amount of variation in the songs of different male orioles is unique among our nesting birds.

The design of the nest is so successful that few young are lost to predation, so the pair only raises one brood. Summer means a quiet wandering through the trees out of sight, and I marvel at how hard they are to find then. But the next May they always return and shout their songs and colors to all who can hear. I am glad I looked that day and found the oriole.