WINGSCAPES

Ode to an Oriole

In her poem "To Hear an Oriole Sing," Emily Dickinson famously wrote "To hear an Oriole sing / May be a common thing— / Or only a divine." Miss Dickinson was almost certainly writing of the Baltimore Oriole, perhaps the most famous songster of the orioles appearing in North America.

What would Miss Dickinson have written about others of the oriole family, such as this pair of Hooded Orioles recently posted to the Wingscapes Photo Gallery by Pam from Redwood City, California? With their faster, choppy, and sometimes raspy sound, would the Hooded Orioles have inspired such praise?

BirdCam Life List Reigning Champions

Shirley and Wayne from Cottonwood, Arizona keep sending us great shots. These were some of their first photos!

Here are a few of the pictures they have sent us that we have added to our BirdCam Life List.  They have also submitted the Verdin, Crissal Thrasher and the Gambel's Quail.

Shirley writes:

Here is a picture of the hooded oriole - male taken today, May 5, 2008 in Cottonwood Arizona. We noticed that you did not have one posted on your life list of the Wingscape bird cam webpage.

We are new at this - actually today is the first day that we have had our camera.

We have quite a few more birds that come in regularly to our feeder that are not on the life list, and I want to send them as I get them...

Black Chinned Hummingbird - this is the cutest little guy. Note the dark throat and white line under black on his throat. He's a nice purple...

Our only other one up here right now is the Anna's. Down in southern AZ there are so many other species and it's a real treat to go hummingbird watching down there.

Bullock's Oriole - this is the oriole that we have out west that is like your eastern version.  Note he has a dark back of his head, as compared to the hooded oriole that I sent in a few weeks ago. We also had the Scott's oriole, but of course, we haven't seen him since we got the bird cam.