Oh the Orioles!

I've decided to take a little break from sharing our Trinidad and Tobago trip to report on our Baltimore Orioles here at home.  

Long-term readers may remember my posts about the Jelly Feeder Parade and Fun At The Jelly Feeder, as well as the day I braved extreme cold January temperatures to make a photographic record of as many oriole nests that I could see within an easy walk from our house.  That post was called Swinging Cradles.  In it, I counted 8 nests, but after that I even found a couple more!  Obviously we have a LOT of Orioles!

We also have at least 2 Grey Catbirds coming regularly, several Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and a few Red-winged Blackbirds.

They all eat jelly, and some also eat the chopped grapes, pieces of banana and watermelon I put out.

But, most of them seem to like the grape jelly best.  Sometimes they get into fights over it.

Though I've never seen anyone actually get hurt, and usually they just take turns.

You would think I would have noticed before now, but recently when looking at my photos, I realized you can tell the male orioles apart.  See if you can tell how in the next few photos.

Did you notice that the black markings at their throats are each a little bit different?  I honestly don't know how I have not realized this before!  Now, I've been having fun trying to capture a photo of as many different ones as I can, but it's not easy.  For instance, sometimes you only see them like this:

And then there are the 1st year males and the females...

I don't know if the next guy is just still young or if he has some leucistic feathers on his head.

 I've only shown you a few... we really have oodles of Orioles!  

And this year's 'crop' is just getting started.  Yesterday morning, I could tell the ones in the nest in our yard had fledged because I could hear them peeping loudly from a couple places nearby.   

First, here's the nest.

Here's one fledgling fairly high up in a tree.  It was peeping like crazy, asking to be fed.

And, then, one that apparently wasn't really quite ready to fledge and wound up in the grass.

I picked it up in the 'bird bander's hold' so I could put it up on a limb where it would be safer.  (Gizmo the pup was quite interested in 'playing' with it when it was in the grass -- good thing I was watching!).

It wasn't too happy about this, but I wasn't hurting it!

I carefully got it to hold on tight to a maple limb (on the second try... on the first try it didn't want to hold on and fluttered to the ground again!).

The mother was close-by, scolding me the whole time, so I know she watched where I put him.  A few hours later, it was gone so hopefully it went off to a safe place.

This morning, both Mama and Papa Orioles are busy carrying food away from the feeders in various directions... so I'm sure there are lots of babies being fed.

They scold me if I go out on the deck, even to replenish their food (which I have to do several times a day), but they don't mind Ruby at all!

I thought you might like to see Ruby, too, since it's been awhile since she's been on the blog.  Next, I still have more photos I want to show you from Trinidad and Tobago!