Since December 3rd an immaculate male Baltimore Oriole has been
feeding in the tall pines outside of my office window in Millington
Hall on the William & Mary campus. Many of my non-birding colleagues
and some of my ornithology students have been able to see the bird
well from my second-story window. These trees are at the end of
Landrum Drive, which is accessed from Jamestown Road. The plumage on
this bird is absolutely spectacular, I presume reflecting that these
birds molt at this time of year on their proper wintering grounds
into the plumage that we don't normally see until May. Other
wintering orioles I've seen have not been after-second-year males so
I was not aware that they could look like this in early winter.
Dan Cristol
--
Daniel A. Cristol, Assoc. Professor of Biology
College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795
(757) 221-2405, dacris@xxxxxx; FAX: (757) 221-6483
http://faculty.wm.edu/dacris/
You are subscribed to VA-BIRD. To post to this mailing list, simply send email
to va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx. To unsubscribe, send email to
va-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field.
