Altamira Oriole

BirdNote^®

The Musical Altamira Oriole

Written by Bob Sundstrom

This is BirdNote!    

From a wooded thicket along the lower Rio Grande River comes a rich, whistled song. [Altamira Oriole song]    

Your eye catches a flash of brilliant orange. There’s the singer, an Altamira Oriole. A dashing bird. [Altamira Oriole song] Its orange body contrasts beautifully with its black breastplate and eye-patch.

One of the largest orioles at 10” from beak to tail, the Altamira is a tropical resident year-round, reaching into the United States only in southernmost Texas. And it was only in 1939 that the Altamira Oriole was first found north of the Rio Grande. Now it happily visits residents on the Texas side of the river, especially where juicy orange slices wait in a backyard feeder. [Altamira Oriole song]

Northerly-breeding orioles — like the Bullock’s in the West [Bullock’s Oriole song] and the Baltimore in the East [Baltimore Oriole song] — are migratory. These orange beauties nest as far north as Canada, but winter mostly in Central America. Their songs, too, are memorable, but no match for the music of the Altamira Oriole. [Altamira Oriole song]

Sounds of the birds featured on BirdNote are provided by the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. I'm Mary McCann. [Altamira Oriole song]

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Song of the Altamira Oriole provided by The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Recorded by G.A. Keller.
BirdNote's theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and produced by John Kessler.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2016 Tune In to Nature.org     February 2014/2018/2021    Narrator: Mary McCann

ID# 2008-02-20-ALOR-01   ALOR-01b