Bullock's Oriole - Blaze of Orange

BirdNote^®

Bullock’s Oriole--A Blaze of Orange

This is BirdNote!
[sounds of a stream]
We’re hunkered down next to a stream, under a leafy cottonwood tree in Eastern Washington. That loud song we’re hearing – a mix of sharp whistles and guttural chuckles – is bursting out overhead. 
[Bullock’s Oriole song, twice] 
Ah! There he goes! A dazzling bolt of avian lightning -- a blaze of neon-orange shooting across a gray, sage-covered hillside on quick wing-beats. It’s a Bullock’s Oriole, sallying out from its nest among the upper branches of the cottonwood, to hunt for insects in the shrubby sage.
[Bullock’s Oriole song] 
Bullock’s Orioles are summer visitors to the Northwest, and perhaps the most vividly colored of all our birds. On the brilliant orange male, watch for black on its head and back and a bright flash of silvery white in the wing. The blackbird-sized female is a more subtle yellow and gray.
Bullock’s Orioles return north from Mexico in May to nest along many lowland streams east of the Cascades, and here and there near Puget Sound. It is their intricate woven nests that orioles are best known for.
[Bullock’s Oriole song]
To see a photo of the Bullock’s Oriole, come to our web site, birdnote.org. I’m Frank Corrado.
###
Written by Bob Sundstrom
Bullock’s Oriole song provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York.  Recorded by G.A. Keller.
Ambient by John Kessler Productions.
Producer:  John Kessler
Executive Producer:  Chris Peterson
© 2009 Tune In to Nature.org    Revised for July 2009

ID# 071706BUOR1KPLU    BUOR-01