Photo courtesy of Greg Lavaty

Baltimore Oriole

Icterus galbula
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Icteridae
Listen:
Sound courtesy of Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Did you know?

Baltimore Oriole populations have declined 30% across their breeding range since 1980. Like many migratory songbirds, this Oriole's decline coincides with a dramatic conversion from shade-grown coffee to sun-grown coffee across Latin America.

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General Description

Adult male Baltimore Orioles are conspicuous - their bright orange bodies contrasting with their black head, bill, back, and wings that reveal a white wing bar. Females show a feather pattern that is similar but duller in color. The female builds a nest that is a woven pouch hanging down from a branch or twig 25 to 30 feet above the ground. The male, a little smaller than an American robin, sings his rich song all summer. Visit BirdWeb to learn more about this bird.

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Habitat & Migration

This adaptable bird breeds in a variety of open habitats such as urban and suburban parks, moist open woodlands along streams and rivers, open areas with scattered tall trees, and open woods where it prefers deciduous trees to evergreens. Baltimore Orioles breed from the east coast of the United States to the eastern edge of the Rockies, and throughout much of southern Canada. During its breeding season, the Baltimore Oriole forages on trees and bushes for caterpillars, adult insects, and spiders, and sometimes it eats fruit. With its preference for eating caterpillars, this bird helps to reduce the population of destructive tent caterpillars in forests and orchards on its breeding grounds.

On its wintering (non-breeding) grounds in Central and South America, this bird also uses several kinds of habitat. These include coffee and cacao farms under naturally-occurring or planted trees, tropical evergreen forests, open-canopy forests, woodland edges, and coastal marshes. On its non-breeding sites, the Baltimore Oriole eats nectar and small fruits, as well as caterpillars and other insects. Most Baltimore Orioles migrate south to spend the winter in southern Mexico, Central America, and northwestern South America. They start their southern journey by mid-September, and they begin their return trip in February or March, reaching the Gulf Coast early in April.

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The Coffee Connection

Baltimore Orioles regularly occur in coffee plantations in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, and Nicaragua. At the Selva Negra shade coffee farm in Nicaragua, Baltimore Orioles are common from September to April, but absent from May to August, when they are breeding in North America. They are also an uncommon migratory species in coffee plantations inside Los Tres Picachos State Forest in Puerto Rico.

In eastern Chiapas, Mexico, farmers grow shade coffee either under natural forest (rusticThe coffee-growing system in which the original tree layer is left intact and coffee bushes replace the original undergrowth.
More... coffee plantations) or under planted shade trees, consisting primarily of IngaFlowering tropical trees commonly used to provide shade in coffee plantations. Some shade coffee birds use Inga flowers and nectar.
More... species. The Baltimore Oriole uses both kinds of shade plantations, as well as shaded cacao farms. During the dry season in eastern Chiapas, wintering migrants-- particularly Baltimore Orioles and Tennessee Warblers-- flock to Inga trees, which produce a large crop of flowers that birds visit for nectar from late March to early May. The density of Baltimore Orioles is twice as high in Inga plantations as in rustic plantations during the dry season, when few of these orioles are found in any other habitats. These data indicate that Baltimore Orioles and various other birds in eastern Chiapas depend heavily on Inga trees in coffee plantations during the dry season.

Other studies have found Baltimore Orioles in specific types of shade coffee habitat as well. In western Chiapas, Mexico, they were found in rustic coffee. In central Guatamala, researchers observed Baltimore Orioles only in managed shade coffee plantations dominated by GliricidiaFlowering, deciduous tropical trees used to provide shade in coffee plantations. Some shade coffee birds use Gliricidia flowers and nectar.
More... trees, but not in plantations dominated by Inga or without a tree canopy (known as sun coffee). Some orioles spend time foraging among epiphytesPlants that grow harmlessly on other plants - usually trees - rather than in the ground.
More..., such as orchids and bromeliads that grow on shade trees. In more intensely managed shade coffee farms, farmers often remove epiphytes from trees. In Veracruz, Mexico, Baltimore Orioles, as well as other migrants and residents, were more numerous on farms that did not remove epiphytes.

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Conservation Status

According to the International Union for Conservation of NatureA global environment network which publishes a "Red List" indicating the conservation status of plants and animals. Status on the “Red List” increases from Least Concern to Near Threatened to Vulnerable to Endangered to Critically Endangered.
More... (IUCN), the global conservation status of the Baltimore Oriole is "Least Concern." Between 1966 and 1979, Baltimore Oriole populations increased, according to data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey. However, since 1980, populations have declined by 30% across the oriole's breeding range. More research is needed to understand the changes leading to this decline, but researchers have noted that this Oriole's drop in numbers coincides with the dramatic conversion of shade to sun coffee across Latin America. Populations of many other migrating songbirds have also dropped since 1980. Evidence suggests that bird diversity increases in coffee farms closely resembling natural forests, and diversity decreases in areas where forest has been cleared to make way for minimal shade or sun coffee farms. One suggested way to maintain bird diversity on coffee plantations is to manage the coffee plantations for additional products rather than just for coffee. The goal would be to maintain a complex forest canopy consisting of a diversity of shade trees, with fruit, nut, and medicinal crops in the understory, in addition to coffee.

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