nest

Bullock’s Oriole Building a Nest at Barr Lake State Park, Colorado /  by Todd Henson

Here a Bullock’s oriole is just leaving its nest

Oriole’s are beautiful and somewhat iconic birds. In the Northern Virginia area I’ve often seen orchard orioles while out hiking through the right environment, and occasionally in some areas I’ll see a Baltimore oriole. But that’s it. The other oriole species of North America are all further west or southwest.

The first thing I noticed was an empty nest

So when I had the chance to visit Colorado in early June (many years back) I was very pleased to run into a Bullock’s oriole working on its nest right along a main trail in Barr Lake State Park. I saw the nest first. All the photos of the oriole are cropped in quite a bit to let you see the bird a bit closer. But the photograph of the empty nest is just as it was framed at 230mm with a 70-200mm lens and a 1.4x teleconverter. So the nest was very close to the trail. But when I noticed the bird trying to come back to the nest I moved further back to give it space. And that’s all it took.

An early view of the Bullock’s oriole perched in a tree near its nest

For whatever reason I struggled to identify this bird at the time. I wasn’t sure it completely fit any of the photos/descriptions in my field guides. It seemed a bit more yellow than orange which seemed to point towards a female or younger male (except for Audubon’s or Scott’s orioles, but it didn’t appear to be either of those). The blacks weren’t the stark blacks that photos of the males seemed to possess. The black goatee/chin seemed to indicate a possible male, though I read somewhere you might sometimes find a female with one and they’re thought to be older females. The narrowness of the goatee and the dark eye line pointed me towards the Bullock’s oriole, and a photo in National Geographic’s Complete Birds of North America shows a 1st spring male Bullock’s that appears to match my specimen, one that is just starting to develop the stronger black markings. And it could be complicated by the fact that Bullock’s and Baltimore orioles do sometimes interbreed (hybridize) in areas where their ranges overlap. Colorado seems more the Bullock’s range but the Baltimore’s range isn’t too very far east, so maybe? Probably not as that overlapping range is apparently a narrow one.

Another view of the Bullock’s oriole perched in a tree

The more I thought through all the field markers the more I kept leaning towards a Bullock’s oriole given the area where I found it, but I wasn’t willing to accept my own identification until years later when I ran two different bird identification apps against each of the photos and both apps identified them as a Bullock’s oriole (Icterus bullockii). And so I believe this bird to be a young, perhaps 1st spring, male Bullock’s oriole. But if you feel I’ve misidentified this bird then please leave a comment letting me know what you think it is and why, what identifiers or field marks you used to identify it.

The Bullock’s oriole has just landed at its nest and gives us a nice view of its black goatee

Interestingly, at one point in time the Bullock’s and Baltimore orioles were thought to be a single species and at the time were called northern orioles. But as happens, they were later differentiated based on DNA studies and other criteria. The name Bullock refers to William Bullock, an English amateur naturalist.

The Bullock’s oriole sticks its head in its nest

I was so fortunate, not only to find an oriole species we don’t have back east, but to find one working on its nest. I love finding birds in and around their nest. You can see such incredibly interesting behaviors, as visible in some of these photos.

I love this view of the Bullock’s oriole completely inside the nest with just head and tail showing

I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at a Bullock’s oriole working on its nest, as well as some of my struggles with identifying it. Have you ever seen this species of oriole, or any species of oriole? Let me know in the comments below.

Resources

Below are the three field guides I used most when identifying the Bullock’s oriole. Of them I found the National Geographic Complete Birds of North America the most helpful. It’s by far the largest book, not a guide you’d take out into the field, and that gave it the extra space to show some extra photos which made a big difference for me.

I am including affiliate links for the field guides and as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This is at no extra cost to you and helps support me and this site. Thanks for your support.

The two apps I used and found very helpful were:

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Cardinals Nesting in the Blueberries /  by Todd Henson

Male northern cardinal and blueberries

My folks have several blueberry bushes that some years provide great tasting blueberries and other years are almost completely eaten by wildlife before they’re fully ripe. The best blueberry years are those when there’s netting over the bushes, but sometimes there’s just not enough time to deal with new netting. This year we were trying to put up some make-shift netting, hoping to get some berries, when my father discovered a nest in one of the bushes, which turned out to be the nest of a pair of northern cardinals. And it contained at least three small blue eggs with brown spots, so it was an active nest. Pretty exciting, but also a little disappointing, as we wouldn’t be able to put up netting on that particular bush.

Northern cardinal eggs in a nest

While working around the bushes I took the opportunity to briefly photograph the nest and the eggs, as I’d never seen an active cardinal nest before. But I tried, as much as possible, to stay away from the nest, both so I didn’t disturb it and so I didn’t attract attention to it.

Female northern cardinal reaching for blueberries

Later, after we were finished with the netting, I setup at a distance and photographed some of the activity in the blueberry bushes. Many of the local birds are somewhat used to the presence of people, which makes photographing them much easier. And most years my folks have bird feeders, though this year they don’t as local authorities have recommended taking down all bird feeders because of a bird illness sweeping through the region that they think might be spread faster when birds congregate at feeders. Thankfully, I didn’t see evidence of this illness with these birds.

The female northern cardinal flying between branches

Mmmm, mmmm good! The female northern cardinal feasting on a blueberry

But being used to people, and having such a great food source as a blueberry bush with ripening berries, it was fairly easy to get some interesting photographs of the pair of cardinals. I setup at a bit of a distance from the bushes, right between some raised garden beds where my folks grow vegetables. I watched as the male cardinal sometimes turned to look at me as he heard the camera’s shutter click. And I watched as the female pulled down and ate several blueberries.

Though somewhat exposed up top, from the side the female northern cardinal is difficult to see in her nest

If you’re curious how to tell the male and female apart, look closely at the coloration. The male is a brighter red, whereas the female has some reddish tones to her feathers but is otherwise a duller color, more tan or brown. The dark feathers around the beak of the male are black, but on the female they are closer to gray.

Are you still there? One final look at the male northern cardinal peeking around some branches at me

We were hopeful this might turn into a productive nest but also concerned the cardinals had chosen a poor location. The nest was somewhat exposed up top. And the blueberry bushes, though containing plenty of food for the cardinals, also attracted many other birds and critters. I don’t know that building a nest right in the middle of a local food source for other animals was a good idea. Unfortunately, this did prove true, as several days later my father found the nest empty. I’m hopeful this was early enough in the season that the pair of cardinals found a better location to try again and that perhaps this story, even with the initial losses, had a happy ending.

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Osprey Almost Ready to Fledge /  by Todd Henson

A young osprey exercising its wings, almost ready to fledge the nest.

Anytime I find an active bird nest I think it’d be nice to be there at the moment one of the nestlings fledge. But there’s a certain amount of luck to that. You may be able to tell it’ll happen soon, but can you tell whether it will be today, tomorrow, or four days from now? And can you pick what time on whatever day it’ll happen? I’m not knowledgable enough to do that

An adult osprey returns to the nest with a fish for the two nestlings.

As much as I would like to, I don’t currently have the luxury of spending all day, each day, at a nesting site, so I rarely manage to be there for that beautiful moment (though I was fortunate to just barely catch part of the process with a group of hooded merganser ducklings). And though I didn’t see the actual moment of fledging this time, I still had the good fortune to observe some great osprey behavior, watching a nestling practice flapping its wings, watching a parent return to the nest with a fish, and watching a little adult/youth bonding as the other nestling ate the fish. At the end of the day I was a very happy camper. 😃

The adult osprey (on the left) and a youngster (on the right) share a bonding moment while the other nestling eats a fish in the background.

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