Unquestionably this species has gradually extended its range within the borders of the State, for the earlier investigators did not regard it as resident on Puget Sound. It has profited greatly and deservedly by the spread of settlement everywhere, and this is especially true of the more open situations. Not a little it owes, also, to the introduction of cattle; for it is as great a rustler about corrals and stamping grounds as its renegade cousin, the Cowbird.
No. 17.
BULLOCK’S ORIOLE.
A. O. U. No. 508. Icterus bullockii (Swainson).
Description.—Adult male: Black, white, and orange; bill, lore, a line thru eye, and throat (narrowly) jet black; pileum, back, scapulars, lesser wing-coverts, primary coverts, and tertials chiefly black, or with a little yellowish skirting; remiges black edged with white; middle and greater coverts continuous with edging of tertials and secondaries, white, forming a large patch; tail chiefly yellow but central pair of rectrices black terminally, and remaining pairs tipped with blackish; remaining plumage, including supraloral areas continuous with superciliaries, orange yellow, most intense on sides of throat and chest, shading thru cadmium on breast to chrome on rump, tail-coverts, etc. In young adults the orange is less intense and, encroaches upon the black of forehead, hind-neck, etc., altho the tail is more extensively black. Adult female: Above drab-gray, clearest on rump and upper tail-coverts; wings fuscous with whitish edging; pattern of white in coverts of male retained but much reduced in area; tail nearly uniform dusky chrome; underparts in general sordid white; chin and lores white; forehead, superciliary, (indistinct), cheeks, hind-neck and chest more or less tinged with chrome yellow. Young males resemble the female but soon gain in intensity of yellow on the foreparts, gradually acquiring adult black along median line of throat and in streaks on pileum. Length of adult male about 8.25 (209.5); wing 3.89 (99); tail 3.07 (78); bill .73 (18.5); tarsus .98 (25). Female a little smaller.
Recognition Marks.—Chewink size; black, white, and orange of male distinctive; slender blackish bill of female strongly contrasting with the heavy light-colored bill of female Western Tanager with which alone it is likely to be confused by the novice. General coloration of female ashy or drab rather than olivaceous, yellow of tail contrasting with whitish or light drab of tail-coverts.
Nesting.—Nest: a pouch of cunningly interwoven grasses, vegetable fibers, string, etc., 5 to 9 inches deep and lashed by brim to branches of deciduous tree. Eggs: usually 5, smoky white as to ground color, sometimes tinged with pale blue, more rarely with faint claret, spotted, streaked and elaborately scrawled with purplish black or dark sepia, chiefly about larger end. Elongate ovate; av. size .94 × .63 (23.9 × 16). Season: May 20-June 15; one brood.
General Range.—Western United States, southern British Provinces and plateau of Mexico; breeding north to southern British Columbia, Alberta and southern Assiniboia east to eastern border of Great Plains in South Dakota, Nebraska, etc., south to northern Mexico; in winter south to central Mexico.
Range in Washington.—Regular summer resident in eastern Washington thruout settled sections and along water courses; rare or casual west of Cascades.
Migrations.—Spring: Yakima County, May 2, 1900; Moses Lake, May 15, 1906; Chelan, May 21, 1896.
Authorities.—Icterus bullockii Bon., Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. IX. pt. II. 1858, p. 550. T. C&S. D¹. D². Ss¹. Ss². J. B.
Specimens.—(U. of W.) Prov. C. P¹.
Bird of sunshine and good cheer, springtime’s ripest offering and emblem of summer achieved, is this happy-hearted creature who flits about the orchards and timber cultures of eastern Washington. The willows of the brook, the cottonwoods and the quaking asps, were his necessary home until the hand of the pioneer made ready the locust, the maple and the Lombardy poplars, which are now his favorite abiding places. And so, for many years, the droning of bees, the heavy-scented breath of the acacia, and the high, clear whistling of the Oriole have been associated memories.
BULLOCK’S ORIOLE.
A little less dandified than his eastern cousin, the lordly Bird of Baltimore, the Bullock Oriole fulfills much the same economy in habit, song, and nesting as that well-known bird. He is, if anything, a little less musical, also, and not so conspicuous.
The males arrive a week or two in advance of their mates, and appear quite ill at ease until joined by their shy companions. Marriage compacts have to be settled at the beginning of the season, but rivalry is chiefly between the under-colored young blades who must make their peace with the sweet girl graduates of the previous year. Orioles are very closely attached to a suitable locality, once chosen, and a group of nests in a single tree presenting successive annual stages of preservation, is fairly eloquent of conjugal fidelity.
Taken near Spokane. Photo by F. S. Merrill.
FEMALE BULLOCK ORIOLE.