Welcome to April everyone! Big thanks to Brad for keeping you entertained while I am out traipsing about the west. Some would consider vacation to be a relaxing, lazy day endeavor. In contrast, we here at Intrigued approach it as a test of strength and resolve mixed in with equal amounts of frustration and euphoria. It does come with a perpetual smile though as there is nothing better for the soul than being out in nature hunting for feathers. It also means there is a good chance you will be without connectivity which is the case for the last several days as we were exploring southeastern Arizona. Apologies for the delayed responses to post comments and the avalanche of unread emails that are still trying to download. I need to get caught up, but the next several days will be busy as my brother Ron is coming out to meet us for some weekend birding. He has some catching up to do as I just broke into the top 100 birders in all of US with my 308 annual count as I am on quite a streak! More on that in future posts. In the meantime, thought I would introduce you to another Streak.
Hit the jump to read more about today’s featured feathered friend.
Guessing many of you are familiar with one or more members of the Oriole family. Here in the US we have 8 different species:
Orchard Oriole (link here)
Hooded Oriole (link here)
Bullock’s Oriole (link here)
Spot-Breasted Oriole
Altamira Oriole (link here)
Audubon’s Oriole
Baltimore Oriole (link here) woof, those pictures from 2014 were bad
Scott’s Oriole
Thanks in part to our latest excursions, I can proudly say I have 7 of those already in the tin and until I looked it up for this post, I had no idea what the hell a Spot-Breasted Oriole was. Appears I need to book a trip to southeast Florida to address that missing link. I also need to get on the ball and get posts out for the rest of the Orioles still in the backlog.
It is likely you are not familiar with today’s Oriole entry unless you are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time in in the deep southwest as this species prefers to hang out in Central America – specifically along the west coast of our connected neighbor to the south. How about a little hint to the name:
Pardon me, sir, did you see what happened?
Yeah, I did
I’s just standin’ over there by the tomatoes, and here he comes
Running through the pole beans
Through the fruits and veggies, naked as a jay bird
Ethel’s over at the jams, jelly’s and peckels
I hollered over, I said, “Don’t look, Ethel!”
She dropped the whole jar
Heavens, too late, she done been incensed
Harold Ray Ragsdale, you are a comedic genius – to this day I still know every line of that hilarious diddy.
Yes, it is the Streak in reference to this new lifer, the Streak-Backed Oriole. Luckily, we (Linda, my brother Ron and I) were in the right place at the right time back in January of 2024. We were birding the Phoenix area when we met a local birder that recommended we hit a place called Riparian Preserve at Gilbert Water Ranch (link here). I never really know what to expect when I hear a recommendation to bird an urban park setting. Oftentimes, it ends up being a predominantly noisy affair with heavy concentrations of children and family picnics which isn’t the greatest when trying to pick out bird calls or small disturbances in the trees. This, however, turned out to be an absolutely fantastic place and one I highly recommend for those in the Phoenix area.
There can be a lot of people there, but there is plenty of space to spread out in and the curators of the place have created an amazing setting for a variety of birds (and birders) to enjoy. The place is immaculate with well manicured paths through desert scrub and several ponds – all loaded with quality birds!
Prior to our visit back in 2024, we checked out the eBird reports and noted the Streak-Backed Oriole rarity sighting there. That was clearly the target for the visit – problem was none of us knew what this bird looked like other than it was likely medium shaped with a sharp bill and well..likely orangy – purely based on the majority of other Orioles we had encountered in the past.
Not a lot to go on, especially being in a new location. Keeping with the right time and place theme, we encountered an older birding couple not too far into are hunt. Ron being Ron struck up a conversation with them and learned that they knew where the bird was being seen and were actually heading out to get another look. Ron is the chatty one of the family hehehe (I am sure this will draw a comment!). We continued to have a nice conversation as we headed to the back of the park. I will confess, I was hoping for more walkie and less talkie as I didn’t want to miss the chance to tin this lifer.
Eventually, we made out way to the area it was seen, but they (male and female) were nowhere to be found. There were oranges marking the spot which we soon found out was a bit of contention between the birders and park volunteers. I’ll refrain from going down that rabbit hole here and simply pointing out that is how we later found this specimen as it was actually hanging out at an orange around the corner to the path we were originally directed to.
We happened to be the only two people there for our first encounter. In this brief look I think I managed to get a sum total of 4 “proof” shots that would be sufficient for the check, but would take fingernail pulling with pliers to get me to show anybody. I cannot remember if we decided to come back later that day or the next, but on this second attempt there were plenty of other people camped out at the orange.
This time we got muuuuuch better looks…and thus the official post ha.
I hollered up at Ethel, I said, “Don’t look, Ethel!”
Too late, she’d already got a free shot
Grandstandin’ it right there in front of the home team
It was not until I got into the digital darkroom that I could really see the feature that lead to its namesake – the streaking on the back. You can see that in a few of the pictures above. The Internet references indicate that the degree of streaking contrast can vary across the region.
Unfortunately, there is not a lot I can pass on about this particular species. Cornell doesn’t cover it as it technically hangs outside of the US and Wikipedia (ugh) basically states it prefers arid woodland, savanna, grassland and shrubland. Audubon doesn’t even have much to offer beyond having a least concern conservation status, it is orangy and beats their wings fast.
In closing, I’ll just mention that we were actually at Gilbert’s Water Ranch yesterday and this Oriole is no longer there. Still a great park though and had a great time tinning the more local residents.
Take care everyone, will check back in when things settle down a bit out here. Based on all the good finds so far, you are going to have plenty of new birds to learn about this year…well, actually well into next year based on the size of my current queue ha!
Life Intrigued 