Tuesday, August 14, 2001

Orchard orioles nest at Nueces

When I went to the Spiller home about five years ago, it was to see a family of anis which had nested at the foot of the hill, and regularly passed through their yard.
   This time, Linda Spiller had called to tell of a band of orchard orioles that were visiting her sprinkler when she turned it on in late afternoon.
   The yard in Castle Hills, off McKinzie Road near the Nueces River, backs up to an undeveloped tract that is protected because of a pipeline. We arrived at about 6 a.m. and Linda led us, ushered in by the cats, to the back yard. As soon as she had turned on the sprinkler and adjusted it to play in the trees, birds began to appear. The first were yellow-green, the color of immature or female orioles. They appreciated the water. Some flew across spouts of it where it wet the hackberry tree leaves; others picked a perch, and sat where water could fall on their dusty feathers, shook their shoulders, and stretched in pleasure.
   From the tropics
   Orioles are colorful birds of the treetops, many of them patterned in orange or yellow and black, but orchard orioles are small and colored in a rich brown and black. Young and females are green with black markings. They come from the tropics, where they winter, to every part of the eastern half of the United States, where they breed. During migration, though not gregarious, they travel in flocks.
   Some years a few have nested in scattered trees out from the north bank of Nueces Bay. Oberholser refers to the species as "the little mesquite oriole" because of its preference for that native tree. Nests are skillfully woven cups, suspended from the end of a limb. The favorite diet is insects, including the scourge of cotton farmers, the boll weevil. In winter, orchard orioles are attracted to nectar, which they sip. Some have learned the trick of dining at hummingbird feeders.
   About five green birds sported in the Spiller's hose when one of a different color jumped to the tree top. This one had a black back and wings, not yet wet. Underparts were rich chestnut. Young males are colored like their mothers but have black throat patches but this male was fully adult and in good plumage. Migration by the species is characteristically early.
   In this private refuge, we also saw northern cardinals, a titmouse, mockingbirds, and a golden-fronted woodpecker. Spiller said earlier in the summer she saw a yellow-billed cuckoo, and assured me that anis still come, usually passing through in late morning.
  
   Phyllis Yochem, a Corpus Christi resident, has studied birds in Texas since 1960.
  
  

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Phyllis Yochem, a Corpus Christi resident, has studied birds in Texas since 1960.

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