BALTIMORE ORIOLE 247 



ICTERUS GALBULA (Linnaeus) 



Baltimore Oriole 



Plates 18 and 19 



Contributed by Winsor Marrett Tyler ' 



HABITS 



Here in New England, during the long-drawn-out spring migration, 

 there are several red-letter days. The first of these is the day, 

 sometimes late in February, when the wintering song sparrows, which 

 have been long silent in the shrubbery, begin to sing their spring 

 song, a tinkling melody which foretells the ending of winter. As the 

 year advances, there is another welcome day, the real beginning of 

 the migration, when the bluebird, flying over the brown fields of 

 March, comes back to his summer home, and we hear the softest, 

 sweetest voice of all our birds — "the herald offspring," Alexander 

 Wilson calls him. But the greatest day of the whole year is in early 

 May when the season is well established, when the apple blossoms 

 are opening. Many of the birds are already here and have been 

 singing for days. On this day, not far from the 8th of the month, 

 the Baltimore oriole makes his dramatic entrance into New England. 

 On every hand, in our orchards, among the high branches of our 

 roadside elms, the little trumpeter is heard blowing his tiny bugle; 

 all out-of-doors is animated by his buoyant personality. 



Spring. — Bendire (1895), speaking of the return of the bird to its 

 breeding ground, says: "The Baltimore Oriole usually arrives in the 

 southern New England States, in central New York, and Minnesota, 

 with almost invariable regularity, about May 10, rarely varying a 

 week from this date; it arrives correspondingly earlier or later farther 

 south or north. About this time the trees have commenced to leaf, 

 and many of the orchards are in bloom, so that their arrival coincides 

 with the loveliest time of the year. The males usually precede the 

 females by two or three days to their breeding grounds, and the same 

 site is frequently occupied for several seasons. * * * It is very much 

 attached to a locality when once chosen for a home, and is loath to 

 leave it." 



The orioles come home with a stirring fanfare, but as each bugle 

 is playing a different tune and the tunes are so distinctive, so charac- 

 teristic of the individual bird, we can almost verify Major Bendire's 

 statement that the birds come back to their old homes. If we take 

 note of the peculiarities in the song of the oriole which we hear from 



1 Dr. Tyler died Jan. 9, 1954, at the age of 77. He assisted Mr. Bent with these life histories in various 

 ways beyond the contribution of 37 complete histories. 



380928—57 17 



