654 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
Nest. —Basket-like, sometimes pensile, woven of wiry green grass, at times 
lined with cotton or thistle down. Eggs: 4 to 6, usually pale bluish white, sometimes 
faintly overlaid with grayish, marked most heavily around the larger end with 
blotches, scrawls, and tracings of browns and purples. 
General Habits. —On the Lower Rio Grande, in Texas, the social 
Orchard Oriole, which does not object to other species nesting in the 
same tree with it, is the bird most often imposed on by the Cowbird. 
Additional Literature.—Stone, Witmer, Educational Leaflet 42, Nat. 
Assoc. Audubon Soc. 
BULLOCK ORIOLE: Icterus bullocki bullocki (Swainson) 
Plate 70 
Description.— Length: 7.5-8.6 inches, wing 3.8-4.1, tail 3.1-3.7. Adult male 
in summer: Line over eye, sides of head and neck, 'posterior upperparts, and under¬ 
parts, orange or yellow; crown , anterior upperparts, line through eye , and narrow 
throat patch, black ; tail with black tip, and middle feathers mainly black, changing to 
almost wholly yellow on outside feathers; wings black, with conspicuous white patch 
and edgings; bill black above, bluish below; legs and feet bluish. Adult male in 
winter: Like summer male but feathers of scapulars, back, and rump tipped with 
gray, and those of underparts edged with whitish. Adult female: Head and hind- 
neck yellowish olive, back, scapulars, and rump olive-grayish, back sometimes 
streaked with black, but brightening to wax-yellow or deeper on upper tail coverts 
and tail; wings with one broad white band and edgings; throat usually with more or less 
black, underparts lemon-yellow fading to gray on belly. Young in juvenal plumage: 
Similar to female but colors duller, throat without black, and yellow replaced by bully 
and sometimes almost wanting. 
Range. —Breeds in Lower Transition and Sonoran Zones from southern interior 
of British Columbia to southern Alberta and southern Saskatchewan south (as far 
east as central North Dakota, central Nebraska, and western Kansas) to south¬ 
eastern Texas, Coahuila, northern Durango, Sonora, and northwestern Lower Cali¬ 
fornia; winters in Mexico from Durango south to Puebla, Miclioacan, and Guerrero. 
Accidental in New York and Maine. 
State Records. —During the summer the Bullock Oriole is one of the fairly 
common residents of the lowest valleys, and in the lower foothills up to 6,500 feet 
throughout New Mexico. It breeds at Carlsbad (Dearborn), Mesilla (Merrill), 
Deming (Bailey), Silver City (Fisher), Socorro (Goldman). [Near Elephant Butte, 
May 24, 1916, four fresh eggs were found, and on the McKenzie Ranch, 60 miles 
north of Roswell, June 16-21, 1918, several pairs were found; it was noted nesting in 
the Pecos Valley between Roswell and Fort Sumner, June 16-21, 1918, and in Grant 
County, May 6-10, 1920 (Ligon)J; Carlisle (Barrell); Santa Rosa (Bailey); Rin- 
conada (Surber); Santa Fe, 1918-1922 (Jensen); and Shiprock (Gilman); thus breed¬ 
ing from 3,500 to 6,500 feet. 
After the breeding season, a few were seen along Red River, Colfax County, 
July 28-October 24, 1913, and a specimen was taken on August 4 (Kalmbach). 
In the fall the species ranges higher and has been noted, July 31, 1904, at Tres 
Piedras, 8,076 feet (Gaut); on August 14, 1904, in the Hondo Valley at 7,600 feet, 
and at a little below this altitude in the Santa Clara Canyon on August 31, 1906 
(Bailey). Most of the birds leave the State in August and the remainder the fol¬ 
lowing month. A late bird was noted October 2, 1913, at Mesilla (Merrill). 
