The Orioles

We have two species of Orioles that travel from their winter home to breed in our little farm-gone-wild.

The Orchard Oriole travels from southern Mexico and northern South America.

The Orchard Orioles arrive and, like most birds that migrate from long distances, they need to replenish calories. They have a strong hankering for sweet fruit. This can be satisfied by offerings of grape jelly! Feeders which hold jars of the fruit jam exists into which one can quickly screw a large vessel.

This is a female Orchard Oriole visiting our jelly feeder.

The next bird is a male Orchard Oriole, perhaps the above female’s mate. They arrived at the feeder within a few minutes of each other.

These next few photos made me think that the bird actually grabs and then flips chunks of jelly into his beak for transport.