By KAREN MADORIN
I follow several online birding sites and enjoy seeing birders report area sightings and activity. Lately, a common question appears repeatedly. Are orioles back?
To prepare for their return, we ordered a case of grape jelly and bought a sack of oranges to tempt these pretty birds to hang in our hood. Despite our eagerness to welcome them, we’ve yet to spy this favorite spring arrival. According to those who know, they first appear here between April 15 and May Day.
In case you want to encourage these colorful and animated visitors, check nearby cottonwood and elm trees for their distinctive nests. Think of them as tiny sleeping bags woven from grasses and other fibers that dangle from branches. Nest sightings during winter and spring trips through your neighborhood offer clues regarding potential oriole pairs sharing your locale. Once you note sack-like, swinging nests, think about setting up your own oriole feeding station to encourage their visits.
What we’ve learned from decades of gardening and birding is that these combined interests create a backyard universe that invites these eye-catching guests to stop for meals. While we don’t have proper trees for nesting, these and other insectivores thrive on tasty insects such as spiders, meal worms, wasps, beetles, grasshoppers, and caterpillars. So, cultivating flowers and vegetables encourages them to forage under our watch even if they nest elsewhere. Placing bird baths, perches, and feeders in open areas around the yard increases the success of this natural pest control. In short time, harried bird parents snag insects in flight and off plants to deliver to a nest full of open-beaked young. It entertains me to watch these predators hunt. As a bonus, I pick fewer bugs off plants.
Last summer, we observed five pairs of oriole parents harvesting insects to feed perpetually hungry offspring. Once the oriole young fledged, parents guided them to our prairie Eden for advanced schooling. Watching them instruct youngsters to identify and capture meals entertained me more than one morning while I sipped coffee on our deck. Occasionally, I snorted java as lessons turned western as newbies caught grasshoppers or cicadas nearly their size.
To invite orioles into your world, hang bright orange feeders containing a grape jelly filled dish. These feeders also include prongs for hanging halved oranges. Several visiting pairs can devour an orange a day and lick the jelly bowl clean when they’re not snarfing protein-packed insects.
The detail about oranges gives pause to fruit growers. As summer advances, orioles add fruit to their diet of creepy crawlers. For those making fruit jellies, cobblers, and pies, simply trim bird pecks in peaches, apples or tomatoes. Unfortunately, these invasions alarm fruit sellers so don’t hang feeders near an orchard.
For those who’ve noticed fibrous sacks dangling from nearby branches and get a kick out of backyard birdwatching, design a universe that invites orioles. Provide fresh water and hang a feeder or 2. Heads up! It’s cheaper to order jelly and oranges by the case so you won’t worry about empty-shelf syndrome during the peak of oriole feeding season. Grow flowers and vegetables. Then make time to sit outside watching orioles control pesky insects. It’s worth a pecked tomato or two considering how many bugs they eat.
Such backyard pleasures encourage me to attend to minute details I’d miss otherwise. This alternate universe near our deck fascinates me and cleans my nostrils during a good coffee snort.