Attracting Orioles to Your Backyard
The Baltimore Oriole is one of the most brilliantly coloured songbirds in the east. The males are flame-orange and black, with a solid-black head and one white bar on their black wings. While the female and immature males are yellow-orange on the breast, grayish on the head and back, with two bold white wing bars. They usually stay hidden in the trees eating and singing out their beautiful whistling notes
Baltimore Orioles nest in open woodlands and large trees. They are infamous for their woven nests which hang 6 to 60 feet above the ground in tall deciduous trees. The nests are woven from plant fibres, pieces of bark, grasses and other suitable materials such as string.
Orioles are insect and fruit eaters, so they will not visit seed feeders. They can be drawn down from their perches with foods like orange slices, grape jelly, mealworms and occasionally nectar feeders. If you have orioles in your area, you have a good chance of attracting them to a fruit or nectar feeder in your yard! If you are new to feeding orioles we recommend placing the your oriole feeder away from any othe feeders in a quiet "corner" of your yard. Once they begin to visit the feeder, you can slowly start moving it closer to the house for a better view.
Fun Facts About Orioles:
- Orioles are insect and fruit eaters. They usually stay hidden in the trees eating and singing their beautiful whistling notes. They can be drawn down from their perches with foods like orange slices, grape jelly, mealworms and nectar feeders.
- When not feeding on nectar, orioles seek out caterpillars, fruits, insects, and spiders.
- Unlike many insect eating birds, Baltimore Orioles will eat spiny or hairy caterpillars, including such pest species as fall webworms, tent caterpillars, and gypsy moths.
- Most male Baltimore Oriole songs vary enough from one another as to be unique to each individual. It is believed females can identify and locate their mate by its distinct song.
- The Oriole nest is an engineering masterpiece. They weave a hanging-basket nest with plant fibers, grasses, vine and tree bark and sometimes string or yarn placed out on the small twigs of a branch 6-45 feet in the air. This keeps them safe from most predators.
- It takes as many as 12 days for an Oriole to weave its nest. One Baltimore Oriole was observed spending 40 hours building a nest with about 10,000 stitches and the tying of thousands of knots, all with its beak.
- The female Baltimore Oriole builds her nest with little or no help from its mate. Only the female incubates and broods, both feed the young.
- While modern day Oriole nests are made primarily of plant fibers, Oriole nests collected in the late 1800s, before the age of the automobile, were made almost exclusively of horsehair.
- Orioles will lay 4-5 eggs anywhere from April to June. The young will fledge as late as 30 days from egg laying.
- Orioles are found across North America in the summer. Some species winter in the tropics and others in Mexico.
- Most Baltimore Orioles spend their winters in southern Mexico, Central America and the tropics, but some will stay in the southern states of the U.S., with a few reports as far north as New England.
- The Baltimore Oriole is a common inhabitant of suburban landscapes due to is preference for open settings that are bordered with mature trees.
- Oriole’s are a member of Icteridae family, meaning that their closest bird relatives include meadowlarks, blackbirds, bobolinks and grackles.
- The oriole gets its name from the Latin aureolus, which means golden.
- The oldest banded Baltimore Oriole recaptured in the wild had lived 11 years and 7 months.
Nectar...the Recipe for Perfectly Fun Feeding
Orioles are known to enjoy orange slices, BirdBerry Jelly and mealworms offered from tray-style feeders. They will even use the protein-rich mealworms to feed their nestlings. Nectar feeders are also attractive to orioles, supplementing the natural nectar they typically find in flowers. Boil two cups of water; add 1/3 cup of sugar; cool and fill the feeder. Be patient and keep the foods fresh, replacing them every few days and be sure to keep your feeders clean, too.