I can do magic. I can make birds disappear. It’s not a trick I perform intentionally. That’s just what happens whenever I chase a rarity in Maine. It’s there for everybody else to see, then it disappears the moment I arrive.
That’s why I don’t chase rare birds much. I have a dismal record of failure. However, a Bullock’s oriole showed up in a Camden backyard on Nov. 14, and it has been visiting a feeder there ever since. I waited several weeks before visiting, fearful my magical power to make birds disappear would jinx it for others. Finally, having given the rest of the world 18 days to go see it, I decided to chance a visit last Sunday.
The Bullock’s oriole is a western bird. The eastern edge of its range barely reaches the Great Plains and parts of the Midwest. It favors riparian woodlands replete with cottonwoods, sycamores, oaks, willows and even mesquite. In size, shape and behavior, it is similar to our Baltimore orioles. Males in breeding plumage are the same color of bright orange. While Baltimore orioles have a completely black head and thin white wing bars, Bullock’s orioles have an orange head with merely a black eye line, and their white wing patches are much larger.
Where the two species overlap, they hybridize regularly. In fact, their willingness to interbreed caused scientists to lump them together into a single species called the northern oriole in 1973. As genetic analysis improved, it became clear the two weren’t closely related, and the species were split again in 1995. Genetics further proved that the Bullock’s oriole is much closer kin to the black-backed oriole of Mexico. All of these orioles winter in the tropics from Mexico through Central America, which is why this bird’s December appearance in Maine is so strange.
This is only the second confirmed Bullock’s oriole documented in the Pine Tree State, though there is a record of a bird having been shot in Sorrento in 1889. Clearly, the Camden oriole needs to get its compass fixed. Fortunately, orioles are reasonably hardy, and there are plenty of backyard feeders in that neighborhood. Insects are the preferred food for orioles, but they can subsist on a variety of fruits, seeds and mealworms for an indefinite time.
Unless I jinx it.
When the bird’s discovery was announced, Doug Hitchcox of Maine Audubon put out the word that the homeowner welcomed birders after 8 a.m. I arrived at 7. With an hour to kill, I wandered the local streets, observing house finches, goldfinches, titmice, chickadees and nuthatches but no orioles.
Other birders arrived. The oriole is famous. There is a code of birding ethics that demands respect for private property. Since it was Sunday morning, I opted to wait even longer to go watch the feeders. Birding etiquette is all-important. I’d rather miss a rare bird than disappoint a property owner.
Finally, at 8:30, four of us walked to the assigned observation spot and waited. We didn’t have to wait long. Almost immediately, a Cooper’s hawk flew into the tall pine above the feeder. The hawk, too, was waiting. Cooper’s hawks are large birds that eat small birds. They like them about the size of orioles. Whether it was the threat of the hawk or my magical powers, I can’t say, but all the birds disappeared.
There was no sense in lingering at the feeder, so I went back out to the street and walked the block again. By now the sun was higher, and activity had picked up at all the feeders throughout the neighborhood except the most important one.
When I returned from my walkabout, the hawk was gone. From the neighboring yard, several northern cardinals began calling. It was a sign that they also believed the hawk was gone.
We waited. Eventually, the four cardinals moved into the trees above us. They kept up their call notes. From across the street, a yellow streak flew to the top of the leafless maple beside us.
Though it was partially obscured by branches, I got my binoculars on it. Bingo! Bullock’s oriole.
The oriole lingered a moment in the treetops, then flew across the yard to another treetop, then flew back across the street and disappeared. A few minutes later, it landed atop a tree in a neighboring yard — just a yellow dot on a distant branch. Then it disappeared again. I waited a while longer, but it stayed disappeared.
Yup. I’m magic.
Bob Duchesne serves as vice president of Maine Audubon’s Penobscot Valley Chapter. He developed the Maine Birding Trail, with information at mainebirdingtrail.com. He can be reached at duchesne@midmaine.com.