So many untrue stories are told about the birds that I am very careful not to tell you anything that is not strictly true.
If you live in the South, you more often see the Orchard Oriole. He is not quite so gay in his dress as the Baltimore. He has chestnut color with his black. His mate is different. She is olive on the back, and yellow below, and she has bright blue legs and feet, which look as if they were covered with kid.
The nest is a hanging one, of course, but it does not usually swing like other oriole nests. It is a little supported at the bottom. It is very beautiful, for it is made of one kind of fine grass. When it is first made, its green color makes it hard to see among the leaves. And as it dries, it turns a rich yellow, like bright clean straw. It is not so high as the Baltimore's, and not hung to the end of a branch. It is often in an apple-tree, for this bird likes to be near people.
The song of the orchard oriole is different from the Baltimore's. It is longer, and has more variety. His mate sings also. Her voice is sweeter than his and not so loud.
If you live in California, the oriole you know will be the Arizona Hooded Oriole. Sometimes he is called the palm-leaf oriole for a reason you will soon see. He is a beautiful, slender bird, having bright orange color with his black. He wears more black than some of the family. His face and throat and tail and wings are of that color, though the wings have two white bars. His mate is yellowish below and olive brown above.
This bird makes the regular oriole family cradle. Sometimes it swings free like the Baltimore's, but not always. It is made of slender, wiry grass, which is green, so that it is hard to see. Sometimes a sort of thread from the edge of palm leaves is used.
This bird sometimes selects a droll place for her nest. She swings it from the under side of a palm or banana leaf. You know a banana leaf is long and wide, and makes a comfortable shade in a hot day; and it does just as well for an umbrella when it rains. It is hard to see how a bird can fasten a nest to a smooth leaf. But Mrs. Grinnell has seen it done in her own yard, and she tells us how the little builder goes to work.
First she takes a thread in her beak and pushes it through the leaf, making a hole, of course. Then she flies around to the other side of the broad leaf, and standing there a minute she pulls the thread through, and pushes it back, making another hole. Thus she goes on, flying from one side to the other till she has sewed her bag to the strong leaf.
Except in the place they choose for their nest, these orioles are about the same as their Eastern cousins, and oriole little folk are the same the world over, I think.