Orchard Oriole

North America's smallest oriole and its most easily missed: the male is deep chestnut rather than orange, the species keeps to hedgerows and pasture edges, and the whole population departs so early that many people never realize their 'summer' oriole left in July.

Range

Breeds across the eastern and central US, from the Gulf Coast to the Dakotas and barely into New England. Winters from Mexico to northern South America.

Migration timing

Arrives on the Gulf Coast in late March and spreads north through April into early May. The departure is the story: adults start leaving in early July — among the earliest fall migrations of any North American songbird — and by late August nearly all are gone.

How to identify one

• Male: black hood with deep chestnut-red body — looks almost black in poor light
• Female: small, slim, evenly greenish-yellow; easily taken for a warbler or tanager
• Second-year males are yellow with a neat black bib — a plumage all their own

At the feeder

Less of a jelly fiend than the Baltimore, but takes nectar readily and loves flowering shrubs — plant trumpet creeper or coral honeysuckle and Orchard Orioles will find them. Enjoy them early; the show ends in July.

Where to find the Orchard Oriole

FeederDates › Orioles › Species › Orchard Oriole