picture of Baltimore Oriole

The Beautiful Baltimore Oriole

May 23, 2011April 11, 2019Tagged female Baltimore oriole, male Baltimore oriole, picture of Baltimore OrioleLeave a comment

As the rain fell in torrents the past week, the orioles must have been busy despite the wind and rain. Two of their nests are on the far side of the pond. I’m excited about the nest above as it affords great visibility for the camera and me to potentially capture great photos.
We’ll see!

The picture above has visceral impact on me. While the photo is not a prize winner, the image shows me what I often see in and among the leaves and branches in springtime. This female Baltimore oriole is dancing the dance of nature, attracting her partner who is a few branches above. Her color tones blend with the not fully unfurled leaves of this tree. She is colored like her world, yet stands out to a watchful eye who can’t help but see the beauty of her open wings and fanned tail. This picture hits me in the chest with an emotional wave of “it’s springtime and the earth is in renewal.”

But while she dances for her mate, she also is busy preparing her nest. Above, you can see her and the work she’s instinctively done for her children, with her mates help.

This year there are more Baltimore orioles than I’ve ever seen before at the pond. I don’t know the reason why, what’s drawn them to the pond. But they can be seen almost constantly. The image above is typical. The male bright and lively in the foreground, the female not quite so obvious in the background. I am excited, anticipating the new generation, which will come along soon!

The Baltimore Oriole Nesting

June 21, 2010April 11, 2019Tagged Baltimore Oriole feeding, Baltimore Oriole hatchlings, Baltimore Oriole nest, images, picture of Baltimore OrioleLeave a comment

I’ve spent many hours during the last month taking pictures of two Baltimore Oriole nests. I’ve monitored the behaviors of the mother, the father, and the babies. I’ve learned a little and speculated a lot. And my psyche has been tweaked.

I look at the image above and I don’t know if the look in the mother’s eye is dumb instinct or a multi-tasking intelligence that hunts, feeds, protects, monitors, instructs, and prepares her hatchlings for their world.

I watch the fathers, not a dead-beat dad to be found, hustling to and from the nest, sharing equal responsibility to feed and care for the young.

There are times the mother sounds a trill for two to three minutes before she approaches the nest. The young stay perfectly still, no tell-tale jiggle of the nest giving away their whereabouts.

Then, another call from her or the father and all babes pop up, and make a racket as they open their hungry beaks and vie for the treats the parent has lined up in his or her beak. I can’t tell yet the pecking order – who gets fed first – the strongest, or the weakest, the loudest or the quietest.

There is a system or a favoritism or a readiness factor, that causes some one-on-one attention. In the image above, why is this little one the only one to be indulged with the mother’s attention? Is this a lesson or a feeding?

Perhaps it’s my imagination, but the young seem to display more enthusiasm when their father arrives to feed them. Perhaps he brings them sweeter treats while the mother keeps their food nutritious.

In the photo above, the little ones wings are seen, showing that the time for leaving the nest is coming soon. I have come to see this week that survival is hardly guaranteed. This photo was taken sometime in the last two days. This evening, one of the fledglings from this nest lay dead on the ground, while a baby Robin lies dead in the flowerbed outside my front door.

Such care is given to baby birds. During prime feeding season (which seems to go on for two weeks for the Baltimore Oriole based on my observation this June), the mother and father frequent the nest with food every six to ten minutes. Sometimes both parents arrive, back to back.

My grandmother’s mother left her and her father when she was seven. My grandmother, a bird lover, would observe the behavior I describe here, and her whole life long would ask, “Even a mother bird returns to the nest. Why did my mother never come back for me?”

Parenting is busy work, tiring work, non-stop work. I puzzled for two weeks wondering why I often saw a male leave the nest with something in his beak – as is evident in the photo above, as the bird flies away from the nest which hangs in the upper right of the photo. A neighbor tells me that the father is removing droppings from the nest.

Nature is harsh. My affection for the little loud mouth that first brought my attention to the nest from which the images in this post were taken, is very likely the little dead bird that lay lifeless on the ground at my feet today. Was it not ready for the world? Did it not quite have its wings? Did it simply fall out too soon – a fall caused by it own over-exuberance when the parents arrived? Or did a predator take it from the nest and drop it as the parents came to its rescue?

Thoughts of life and death, beauty, fragility, hostility, love, attentiveness – fill my mind.

A New Ball Game

May 14, 2008April 11, 2019Tagged picture of Baltimore Oriole, picture of Greater Yellowlegs, picture of Red Fox, Red Fox photo, Song Sparrow, telephoto lens2 Comments

When I wrote yesterday’s post, I knew I had a telephoto lens on order. But, I didn’t mention it, as I thought I had several days before it arrived. But today, just as I was deciding to take a break from my work and head out to the pond for a walk, a UPS truck arrived with my lens. I have mixed emotions about this. It’s been a challenge taking pictures with the wide-angle lens. It’s fine for the overall scenery, but trying to capture the nuances of variation in the creatures has been difficult. Still, I think it’s been great training for me.

So, with some ambivalence, I put the new lens on my camera and headed out the door. As if not by a twist of fate, what arrived on my heels was the Blue Heron. I’ve seen this waterbird only once before this spring. Despite standing for more than an hour observing it late this afternoon, I’m not fully satisfied with the pictures (one is above) that I took today with my new lens. It isn’t as crisp as I had hoped. But, no matter, as my time keeping the Heron in the narrow range of my new viewfinder reaped a shot so unusual at the pond, it’s as if it came with the lens itself.

While I watched the Heron though the lens, a furry four-legged animal walked not eight feet from where the Heron stood. Now, I’ve described the Heron in past post. It’s a bold bird. It didn’t flinch as the thing passed by it. So brazen is this bird that it left its watch along the shoreline, where it had spent thirty minutes stalking fish, and walked up the bank to assess what had encroached on its turf. At first, I thought it was a dog. But, as no leash and person followed it, I raised my eyes from the camera to assist determining what it was, by putting it in fuller context. I was across the pond, so it was not until I returned home and looked at the pictures that I could see that it is a Red Fox. You’ll need to click on the photo to see it well. Return to the post using your back arrow.

(When you click on the photo below to enlarge it, look closely behind the shrub on the left. You’ll see the Red Fox about to walk by the Heron as the bird calmly continues to watch the water.)

Below is the Heron, up the bank, watching the Fox.

So, day one, the lens made a huge difference. It would have been frustrating to not be sure what it was that I saw and to have photos that didn’t quite make it clear.

So that you can share my enthusiasm for the power of this new lens, here are other pictures I took today. The first shows a Greater Yellowlegs, which I saw for the first time two days ago but was not able to get the detail that this picture shows.
This waterbird, which is only about five inches long, has a remarkable wingspan of perhaps fifteen inches. (The photo below was taken with the wide-angle lens a couple of days ago.)

The ordinary American Robin is not looking so ordinary to me lately. This bird has delicate white markings on its tail when it’s spread for flight. As this photo shows, its color tones complement its natural habitat.

I must admit I’m quite happy to finally do justice to the colors of a Baltimore Oriole. This bird has the most striking orange, much brighter than the Robin, and the black is utterly black.

And, below is an up close and personal shot of the Song Sparrow, showing clearly its breast mark. Again, click on the photo to enlarge for best viewing.

I think I’ll try to note, by use of WA (wide-angle) and TP (tele-photo), which lens I use for future photos to this post. It’s not going to be the same. I suppose the viewing will be more interesting for readers. But, it seems a bit too easy to me to get such quality close-up shots!