THE ORCHARD ORIOLE 
By WITMER STONE 
Che Mational Association of Audubon Societies 
EDUCATIONAL LEAFLET NO. 42 
There are several bird voices that in my mind are especially associated with 
the apple orchard,—the mournful cooing of the Dove, the monotonous call of the 
Wood Pewee, and the lively chant of the Orchard Oriole. 
The last is a song that at once attracts our attention,—a rapid series of clear 
notes, fairly tumbling over one another, as they suddenly break upon the ear, 
and stopping abruptly before we have located the performer. 
Song It is a song that recalls, in some respects, that of the Warbling 
Vireo, while the rapid sequence of notes reminds one of the rol- 
licking medley of the Bobolink. Compared with the song of the Baltimore Oriole, 
it lacks strength and fullness of tone, but is much more delicate. The Orchard 
Oriole is a persistent singer, and during the nesting season his lively melody is 
heard continually, even during the heat of midday. Sometimes, like the Bobolink, 
he sings on the wing, but only when passing rapidly from one tree-top to another. 
He is not, as one might judge from his name, exclusively an inhabitant of the 
orchard, but is equally at home among the shade trees about the house or along 
the village streets, especially in the thick foliage of the Norway 
Haunts spruces which are frequently planted about our lawns. Always 
during the breeding season, however, the Orchard Oriole is dis- 
tinctly a bird of the cultivated land immediately about man’s habitation, rather 
than of the wilder, wooded country. When the nesting cares are over, the Orioles 
scatter more widely, and we often come upon little family parties foraging along 
the fence-rows and wood edges far from house or garden. Originally, before there 
were any orchards to lure him away, the Orchard Oriole was an inhabitant of 
wooded river banks, according to Mr. Widmann’s experience in Missouri; and 
in Pennsylvania I have found them in such localities along the wilder parts 
of the lower Susquehanna valley. 
Tt is no easy matter to locate the singing Oriole, as he clings closely to the 
shelter offered by the dense foliage of the tree tops. Now and then, however, he 
flies rapidly from one favorite feeding-spot to another, or back to the nest-tree. 
As he comes suddenly into view on one of these flights, he always seems smaller 
than one would expect; probably the volume of his song, or our familiarity with 
his relative, the Baltimore Oriole, leads us to picture him larger than he really is. 
His actual length is seven inches, nearly an inch shorter than the Baltimore. 
The food of the Orchard Oriole consists largely of caterpillars and other 
insects that he finds among the tree-tops; but, now and then, especially after the 
breeding season, we see an individual alight in the open fields, often on plowed. 
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