The Hiatus of the Orioles

Our orioles - or perhaps more accurately the resident orioles - have been away for about a month's time.

Among the last of the migrators to arrive they show-up, gorge themselves on generic grape jelly and expensive Florida oranges and then - POOF!  Exit, stage right.  They're gone.  Our feeders have been neglected of late.  For sure there have been some exceptions - with both sexes returning at first and last light to feed sporadically before vamoosing into the gathering or dwindling shadows.  And this would include both species - the bold, big and colorful Baltimore oriole and the more muted-of-plumage and diminutive orchard oriole.  Orioles have a proclivity to return to the same location that they have fledged.  Not the same nest - but the same general area year after year.  I freely offer this as my rationalization for refer to them as 'our orioles'.  Yet we all know that they are everyone's orioles.  No matter where they may roost.  I digress.

They're back.

In the last 24 hours (in keeping with the journal and only slightly behind schedule) the adults have returned to the feeders.  The next to appear should be their fledglings.  For those of you a parallel or several south of us you've likely already observed this behavior.  Here, on the peninsula, we have been slightly behind as a consequence of a very cold and wet spring. 

These juvenile birds will alight on a feeder and whine and complain about mom or dad not feeding them some jelly. It's all really quite pathetic to watch - yet having been around children of the human persuasion I get the connection between species. 

In any event I'm going to strap another camera to a porch post to see if I cannot catch a photo or two of the dinner drama.

Stay tuned...