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!

Swinging Cradles

Baltimore Orioles have been long gone from here, spending their winter in the tropics, but I think of them often... because they've left behind their hanging cradles.

It's pretty hard to know how many orioles we have in the spring.  They flock to the jelly feeder.

Besides four male Baltimore Orioles, do you see another bird in the photo?

We've been putting out grape jelly for them for a number of years now, and I think we have a popular spot for them!  We have other visitors to the jelly feeder, which you can read about in my post called, "Jelly Feeder Parade."

Though the jelly provides a high energy snack they need, I feel a little bad just giving them what seems like junk food to me, so I also give them fruit-- like banana...  

or oranges.

It's hard to count how many birds are using our feeders since they are constantly coming and going.  I decided to try to count their nests from last summer while it is easy to find the nests in the bare tree branches.

All these nests are in close proximity to our house.

Here's number one:

As typical of orioles, it's in the tip top of a tall tree-- you can see it circled in the next photo.

Number two is just down the road a short way.

This one looks like it's been blown around quite a bit since it was used, I'd say.

Number three is also along the road, right in front of our house in fact.

It is still in pretty good shape.

Fairly close to that is number four.

It's in one of the poplar trees in our front yard.

Walking on down the road in front of our house, I expected to see the next oriole nest above our mailbox.  I know it was there, as I watched it each day when I was getting the mail, especially when the parents were actively feeding their babies.  But sometime between November 17th and today, it disappeared.  I think probably the branch it had been on fell down.  Here's the photo from November.

In that photo the orioles nest is on the left and a cedar waxwing nest on the right.
Here's a photo of the same spot from today.

Orioles make such strong nests, they usually last a long time.  Although, I've read that female orioles (which make their nests in about a week) sometimes use material from old nests.  The females do most of the job of weaving their nests, though occasionally her mate will supply material for her to use.  After attaching long grasses to the tree limb, she makes an outer bowl, then an inner bowl, and finally lines it with soft materials.  In the next photo you can see a female taking some hair that I provided for the lining!

Okay, back to counting nests.  We were up to four, and I'm going to count the missing one as number five.

Number six is on down the road just past our place.  It's way up in the outer branch of a maple, over the road.

You can see a bit of a piece of blue tarp in it.

Number seven is located in what we call our 'little woods'.  

Can you find it in the center of the photo above?
It's also visible from our dining room window.

I had one more to count, but though I know it was there this summer, it was gone like number five.  I'm certain about that one, too, so that's eight.  Orioles only have one brood per season, so I think we had 8 oriole families very close by.  That's not a 'scientific fact' but I'd say reasonably certain.  

The other thing I am absolutely certain of is how much I enjoy seeing them and I'm looking forward to their return, around the beginning of May.  The jelly feeder will be ready, and I'm keeping a bag of overripe bananas in the freezer for them!  UPDATE:  While the birds loved the grapes I had frozen, they didn't eat the bananas once they were thawed out.  So I don't recommend using frozen bananas!

Too Cute! - Episode "Our Baby Birds"

I've only watched the Animal Planet series, "Too Cute" a few times but I have to say I've enjoyed it.  Compared to a lot of what is on TV these days, at least that show makes me smile.  

Meanwhile, my 'pile' of digital photos of our local baby birds has been growing and growing.  Some of them have already been featured on the blog... like our bluebirds.  But I have a lot of other "too cute" babies to show you.  I thought about making it a contest for you to pick the cutest of them all.  However, when my girls were babies I never entered them in the baby contest at the Harford Fair because to me, they were definitely THE cutest babies and I didn't want any judge telling me otherwise!  So, no contest for these babies either... just enjoy!

The first "too cute" babies are.... the Killdeer!

They hatch from their eggs ready to hop up and start hunting for their own food, but this doesn't necessarily mean their parents have it easy!

In fact Killdeer parents seem more worried than most about their little ones' safety.  If you come anywhere close by, they will do a feigned-injury display to try to distract you away from the nest or young.  If I was doing a whole post about Killdeer I would take time to find an old photo of that and show you.  But I better not get distracted!

I really only should be showing you one or two photos of each kind of bird but I can't resist - these Killdeer babies really are too cute:

One day I watched as one of the Killdeer tried to hide under its parent.  It didn't quite make it all the way under but I guess it felt safer!

"Let me under Mama!"

"I can't see them, so they can't see me, right?"

Next are birds we are all familiar with.... American Robins.

I think we have a greedy baby in this bunch!  It got the bug and the worm!

Neither of the first two bird families was at our property so I can't give you too much info on how they made out.  The parents seemed to be doing a good job raising them when I visited them though.

Now, we'll switch locations to our yard.

You know we had a lot of Baltimore orioles coming to our grape jelly feeder (you can use the blog search box to look up the several posts about it).  The babies are also taught early about our jelly supply.

Same thing with the house finch babies... "Here's where the sunflower seeds are, my dears!"

The woodpeckers teach their babies about our suet...

or they find it on their own, like the young red-bellied woodpecker in the next two photos.  He's in the right place, just needs to find the feeder.

He's getting closer and showing off his first few red feathers on his crown in the next photo.

I love those birds.  They won a contest I did have on here awhile ago for "Best Dressed".

Trying hard not to discriminate between birds I love and those I, well... love less, the next photo is of a Grackle and it's begging youngster.

 The juvenile looks a lot smaller than the adult in that photo, but it's really not.  You can tell in the next photo, taken after they flew up into the tree, that they are actually about the same size.

Our next baby is one that might come down to our feeders in time, but I happened to see it up in our woods.  A fluffy little black-capped chickadee!

The whole family was sputtering about my being nearby, so I didn't stay long.  The babies sure were cute though!

Most babies in the woods are more difficult to get photos of.  I knew where one other chickadee nest, a yellow-throated vireo's nest, and two cedar waxwing nests were this year, but never managed to see the babies.  But I'm glad they were there, and well protected from prying eyes!

Usually a little easier to see are the babies in our swamp.  The Wood Ducks already had their own post here, but you might enjoy seeing them again when they were a little bit bigger.

Well, they are easier to see when they are swimming... not so much when Mama is teaching them to hide in the grass!

Here are some more cute swamp babies: a Canada Goose family...

and one baby a little bit bigger but still cute:

Finally, some barn swallows which decided they would like to live in a swamp, not a barn:

Just waiting for Mama to swoop in and bring them a meal!  Here she comes...

I had a lot of fun watching them from a kayak in a beaver swamp, which was a bit different than their usual location in a barn.  

Last but not least, I'm including a short video of one of our bluebird babies.  I know they had their own post, but this really is "too cute" not to share.  This little bird had done what bluebirds do.... flown down into our lawn to catch a bug.   I had recently mowed the lawn and the baby got a piece of clover and a grass clipping stuck in his feathers.  Here he is trying to preen them out!

Too cute!!!