baltimore orioles

[glenn57]

does anyone else have this issue? this spring i couldnt keep my grape jelly and juice feeder full. now, i havent seen an oriole in i dont know how long and nothing but bees, hornets and wasps. im going to quit feeding orioles. it was cool seeing the finches and robins feeding out of the jelly feeder though. those insects are even chasing them away now.

[MN Shutterbug]

Orioles and grosbeaks were in abundance here this spring and early summer, and now they've flown the coop. Where do they go during the heat of the summer? Maybe I should follow them. This sure is the dog days of summer. I've run out of birds to photograph.

[Dotch]

Think the answer lies in what's going on in their lives during the stretch when they disappear. In this part of the state, they are rearing young and their diet changes from the sweets to insects, which they feed their young. Some will provide mealworm larvae and reputedly that keeps them coming to the feeders. Unfortunately here if I did that, the grackles, sparrows, and just about everything else would devour them too so it would probably be a losing proposition. There have been some orioles coming to our feeders again recently, and some of them appear to be youngsters. There are also male rose breasted grosbeaks feeding on the sunflower seed so not sure where they're coming from after an extended absence.

[Steve Foss]

What Dotch said!

On a slightly different note, in the last couple of days we've seen our first female/immature hummers since they started nesting, so the mayhem at the nectar feeders will only start to grow through the latter part of the month, when they start to migrate.

[glenn57]

so can a guy expect the orioles to come back to the juice feeders?