h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Baltimore Oriole: Bright Aristocrat of the Bushes - A87985462
Author: Dmitri Gheorgheni - Not Banned in China - U1590784

This year was our first experience with the Baltimore Oriole. We got excited - it's a beautiful bird.

Thought we'd share.

Thanks for sharing - great photos! That is an exciting garden visitor!

I know of Golden Orioles thanks to the Fairyland A87788470 game, so I learned a lot from this Entry Very impressive how the Baltimore Oriole extracts nectar-like juice from fruit

The only sentence I wasn't clear about was "However, they still manage to mate successfully before that." - sounds like immature males mate successfully before they mature, but is it that they mature after one year, but only get the brightest plumage after two years?

Ah. It's because it's not obvious to most people that plumage plays a role in successful mating, the way it was to the Cornell Bird Lab. You can get too far into your subject.

I'll go fix that.

Okay, does that work?

Yes - thank you

Very interesting - so for these birds the colour is more of an indicator of age than it is for other species. Just out of interest, is it the case that the birds with more orange plumage are more successful at reproducing, do you know?

I can't find any studies on plumage and reproduction, sorry.

Maybe somebody will write a grant proposal and find out for us.

Ah - yes, it would be a good research project for somebody, as the link between plumage and reproduction isn't clear like for bird species where females have brown camouflage plumage while the males show off flamboyant bright plumage, but it would be dependent on a grant being made available indeed!

A beautiful bird!

I only know of orioles because of Loriot A87918646

I had forgotten that!

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