Called also: GOLDEN ORIOLE;FIREBIRD; GOLDEN ROBIN; HANG-NEST;
ENGLISH ROBIN
Length -- 7 to 8 inches. About one-fifth smaller than the robin.
Male -- Head, throat, upper part of back glossy black. Wings
black, with white spots and edgings. Tail-quills black, with
yellow markings on the tips. Everywhere else orange, shading
into flame.
Female -- Yellowish olive. Wings dark brown, and quills margined
with white. Tail yellowish brown, with obscure, dusky bars.
Range -- The whole United States. Most numerous in Eastern States
below 55 degrees north latitude.
Migrations -- Early May. Middle of September. Common summer
resident.
A flash of fire through the air; a rich, high, whistled song floating in the
wake of the feathered meteor: the Baltimore oriole cannot be mistaken. When
the orchards are in blossom he arrives in full plumage and song, and awaits
the coming of the female birds, that travel northward more leisurely in
flocks. He is decidedly in evidence. No foliage is dense enough to hide his
brilliancy; his temper, quite as fiery as his feathers, leads him into noisy
quarrels, and his insistent song with its martial, interrogative notes becomes
almost tiresome until he is happily mated and family cares check his
enthusiasm.
Among the best architects in the world is his plain but energetic mate.
Gracefully swung from a high branch of some tall tree, the nest is woven with
exquisite skill into a long, flexible pouch that rain cannot penetrate, nor
wind shake from its horsehair moorings. Bits of string, threads of silk, and
sometimes yarn of the gayest colors, if laid about the shrubbery in the
garden, will be quickly interwoven with the shreds of bark and milkweed stalks
that the bird has found afield. The shape of the nest often differs, because
in unsettled regions, where hawks abound, it is necessary to make it deeper
than seven inches (the customary depth when it is built near the homes of
men), and to partly close it at the top to conceal the sitting bird. From four
to six whitish eggs, scrawled over with black-brown, are hatched by the mother
oriole, and most jealously guarded by her now truly domesticated mate.
The number of grubs, worms, flies, caterpillars, and even cocoons, that go to
satisfy the hunger of a family of orioles in a day, might indicate, if it
could be computed, the great value these birds are about our homes, aside from
the good cheer they bring.
There is a popular tradition about the naming of this gorgeous bird: When
George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, worn out and discouraged by various
hardships in his Newfoundland colony, decided to visit Virginia in 1628, he
wrote that nothing in the Chesapeake country so impressed him as the myriads
of birds in its woods. But the song and color of the oriole particularly
cheered and delighted him, and orange and black became the heraldic colors of
the first lords proprietors of Maryland.
Hush! 'tis he! My Oriole, my glance of summer fire,
Is come at last; and ever on the watch,
Twitches the pack-thread I had lightly wound
About the bough to help his housekeeping.
Twitches and scouts by turns, blessing his luck,
Yet fearing me who laid it in his way.
Nor, more than wiser we in our affairs,
Divines the Providence that hides and helps.
Heave, ho! Heave, ho! he whistles as the twine
Slackens its hold; once more, now! and a flash
Lightens across the sunlight to the elm
Where his mate dangles at her cup of felt.
-- James Russell Lowell.