Sharon and Darryl Vaught share their Tennessee orioles

(Photos and story sent in to us by Darryl and Sharon Vaught)

This is our first year to have Baltimore Orioles in our yard, and they first came to feed on our hummingbird feeders (note the picture showing a female oriole and a hummingbird together on the same feeder)!  We immediately started putting out orange halves and set up a couple of oriole nectar feeders as well, and they quickly began to visit them.

We are including representative photos (out of many that we have taken).  Some are better quality than others, but each shows the striking plumage, and at least a few of the interesting poses these birds have shown off for us in the short time they have been in our yard.

We have enjoyed many songbirds in this and past years, including literally dozens of brightly hued goldfinches, dazzling indigo buntings, charming nuthatches, parenting tufted titmice, families of beautiful bluebirds, rufus-sided towhees, unusual rose-breasted grosbeaks (the females scarcely resemble the males), a variety of woodpeckers (including a female Pileated woodpecker), and the usual complement of cardinals, bluejays, magpies, cowbirds, doves, juncos, chickadees, etc.  To add several orioles to that list is most exciting for us.

    

For photographers who are interested in such details, the pictures were taken with a Sony Cybershot DSC-H1 5.1 megapixel digital camera, and many of the pictures were taken at the camera's maximum 24 power zoom (due to the distance maintained by the rather skittish orioles).  Since the camera's optical zoom ends at 12 power, and digital zoom is often destructive to image clarity, we're happy that many of the pictures turned out as sharp as they did.  This was no doubt due at least in part to the camera's Super SteadyShot optical image stabilization, but even that could not prevent blurring caused by the oriole's movement on some of the shots. 

Thank you Sharon and Darryl for sharing your lovely orioles!         

Can you please tell us what town the Vaughts live in? I hope the same things can happen in Henderson, KY!!!

Posted by Lois Harper on Thursday, May 8, 2008 11:04 AM

After some thought, I was also wondering if the Vaughts living area is in the country, do they have acreage, subdivision, mountains, waterpond, or lake, etc? They have a beautiful variety and I wonder what some of the things are that contribute to that variety? Thanks

Posted by Lois Harper on Thursday, May 8, 2008 11:12 AM

I moved to central Texas from Oklahoma about 2 years ago. In OK I had tons of orioles. So far in Texas I have not seen one. No one around here says they have them. Do they come down this far south? I would think so since I am onlu 3 hours south of where I used to be. Do they perfer an open area or trees? We have bluebirds, even painted buntings and everything else but no orioles!!! I really miss them.

Posted by Debbie Berry on Thursday, May 8, 2008 01:51 PM

We live in Jacksonville Florida and we had 2 orioles visit last year and one showed up again this year. We heard this was unsual for this area. We were able to finally get one fair picture.

Posted by Anne Carroll on Thursday, May 8, 2008 07:43 PM

The Baltimore Oriole only visits the very north eastern part of Texas. The Orchard Oriole on the other hand is in almost all of Texas. The Orchard likes open farm and woodland, orchards and shade trees. Sorry you don't have the Baltimore Oriole. Maybe you will have to spend your vacations in OK to get your Oriole fix!

Posted by Mindy on Friday, May 9, 2008 02:33 PM

Oh, what a great story and pics from the Vaughts--and I didn't know that Orioles will visit a Hummingbird feeder! And now I'm wondering if that might explain why one of our Hummingbird feeders was empty this morning when I went to replace the nectar. We don't usually see the Hummers until mid or late May, but I do put up their feeders in April and keep replacing the nectar every few days, eagerly anticipating their arrival. But something was odd this morning--when I went to replace the nectar in the Hummingbird feeders, one was full, but the second was completely empty, which has never happened before, with one full and the other totally drained. And the empty one happens to be next to an Oriole feeder with jelly and oranges, so I'm wondering if an Oriole or two happened by, and maybe drained that Hummingbird feeder. And once I read what the Vaughts wrote, and saw that great picture of the Hummer and Oriole dining together, that got me to thinking that maybe that is what happened here. I guess I'll never know for sure--but that's inspired me to right now order a Duncraft Oriole nectar feeder, in hopes of bettering our chances of luring Orioles to our yard this year. We did have our first Orioles visit a couple years ago, when we put up our first Duncraft jelly/orange feeder, which the Catbirds enjoy as well. Thanks again to the Vaughts for their story, Julie Evans

Posted by Julie Evans on Saturday, May 10, 2008 01:24 PM

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