Eight Shades Of Orange

Eye-catching orioles come decked out in warm hues and build unique, pouch-shaped nests that hang from branches. Get to know each member of this colorful clan.

- Kenn and Kimberly Kaufman

A flash of glowing orange among the pale green of new leaves and a melodious whistle floating on the breeze—after you’ve seen an oriole on a spring morning, you’ll understand why these songbirds are perennial favorites. The Baltimore oriole, common all over the East in the warmer months, is the most famous member of the clan, but you can see seven additional species across North America.

“Oriole” is based on several Latin words that all mean “golden.” The name was first applied to a European bird, a member of what is now called the Old World oriole family. However, American orioles are completely unrelated. They are classified in the blackbird family, along with such birds as grackles, redwinged blackbirds and meadowlarks. The tropics of Mexico and Central and South America are home to more than 30 species of orioles, so the eight found north of the Texas-Mexico border are just the tip of the colorful iceberg.

In most familiar oriole species, females wear mainly hues of greenish yellow to orange-yellow and are not as brightly colored as males. Females do most of the work of building the nests and incubating the eggs, but males do chip in to help feed the young.

The female orioles deserve credit as remarkable builders. Their nests are marvels of avian architecture: hanging pouches or bags of tightly woven plant fibers, attached by their edges and suspended from twigs. Many oriole nests are deeper than they are wide, and despite their distinctive appearance, they can be hard to spot, because they’re often surrounded by heavy foliage. Backyard birders often discover an oriole nest in their trees only after the leaves have fallen in autumn.