Orchard Oriole

This morning I went to Homewood Nature Preserve to see if there were any new migrants around. The property doesn’t get the first morning light so it was quiet when I arrived just after dawn. Walking around the first field, I happened to glance at the lone tree in the middle of the field. A small bird flew into the tree and I found it pretty quickly. My first impression from the size was that it was going to be a warbler but that proved to be wrong.

The bird was a male Orchard Oriole, my first of the year. I continued birding around the property, finding warblers such as Black-and-white, Yellow-rumped, Black-throated Green and Ovenbird. All this time I was hoping that when I returned to that first field, the Orchard Oriole would still be there so that I could try to take some pictures of it.

Luckily for me, the oriole was very cooperative. It was foraging actively, picking up bugs from around the flowers. It stayed on the sunny side of the tree while I was digiscoping it, even allowing me to get quite close and really get some good detail. I was pretty pleased with the results.

While digiscoping this oriole, I also had two Baltimore Orioles fly overhead, another first for the year.