GOLDEN ORIOLES
By ANTHONY BUXTON N most springs, generally in March, letters appear in the papers I reporting golden orioles in various parts of England. I believe that most of the birds reported are green woodpeckers, whose rumps look very yellow in bright sun. Golden orioles are very punctual birds, and cross Europe on the spring migration, whistling their way gaily, but not hurriedly, northward. The cocks travel ten days to a fortnight ahead of the hens, as is the fashion with most spring migrants, and the first cocks reach Geneva about April zo and the Pas de Calais about the first week of May. In Norfolk, and I suspect in all Southern and Eastern Counties, there is a small but regular migration of these birds, and they pass me at Horsey generally in the last week of May or the first week of June.
I happen to be, for two reasons, in a good position to see them. First, owing to the ravages of the sea in 1938, there are no live trees on a front of about three miles except the trees in my garden, which was on a email island during the sea- flood. An oriole looks for trees and hates a bare country, so that any of these birds crossing on a three- mik front is almost certain to visit my garden. Secondly, at two corners of the garden there are, in each case, two pairs of ears trained from Geneva days to catch even in sleep that glorious rippling whistle that a cock oriole produces. If one of these birds arrives one of the four is likely- to hear him. People who do not know the note have the poorest of chances of ever seeing an oriole, for the bird is an expert at keeping branches between himself and human beings, and, brilliant though his colours be (buttercup yellow and glossy black), oak leaves with the sun on them make very good camouflage.
We had a good instance this year of the difficulty of seeing an oriole. At 12 p.m. my son, home on leave from the Army, who had never seen or heard an oriole but had heard me trying to imitate one, was playing croquet on the lawn, while I was writing. He shouted to me through the window : " Is that an oriole? " " Where? " "Back of the house." I ran' to the back door, and from an oak tree not fifteen yards away sounded the whistle of a cock and the cat-call of a hen. For the next hour my wife, four children and I, all with good eyes, stood and walked about under the trees, with the birds
histling, cat-calling and warbling just over our heads, and, though we all got occasional glimpses, we never once got a really clear view f either of the birds with the light on them. They were a properly wedded pair, as I could tell from the contented warbling, and not just travellers ; moreover, they were late for travelling, for it was mid- June. A week later my son was awakened by the cock at 5 a.m., but there was no cat-calling and therefore no hen present. My guess is that somewhere within a radius of three to six miles that pair nested r attempted to nest, and that on the first occasion they were taking a ay off from domestic duties, perhaps during the laying period, and that on the second occasion she was sitting and he was taking a longer flight from home than usual. I poached in every direction at the earliest of hours, but never discovered where they lived.
Orioles are noisy, particularly until the eggs are laid, from dawn till about II a.m., then very silent until 5 p.m., when they often resume their calling until about 7 p.m. ; but dawn is the best chance to hear them. During the last week of May this year I had reliable reports of four separate orioles in Norfolk. One of them I heard
myself in my bathroom with door and window shut while shaving. I just caught something in my ear, flew to the other side of the house from which the sound had come, and was greeted with the full blast of his whistle from trees just beyond a gardener working in the open. The oriole, I suppose, did not like the look of the gardener, for he passed straight on and probably out to sea, en route, perhaps, for Leningrad or some such locality at the birds' northern summer limit.
In the spring of 1945. we had about five visits frapn, I think, the same individual in the course of ten days. He was the earliest I ever heard in Norfolk, for he first appeared on May 12, and I recognised him on subsequent visits because he was such a poor performer. In fact, when I tried to imitate him, and did in fact draw him across the open lawn to within zo yards of the front door, my wife said that my whistle was the better of the two. On one other occasion, some year. ago, a pair visited us twice with a ten-days interval, and I suspect nested somewhere in the county, for when I saw them they behaved as if they were looking for suitable quarters.
Why do not more of them stay to nest with us? There are plenty just across the Channel and a good sprinkling in Holland. I believe that there are two reasons. First, food for the young. We lack those great fat green grasshoppers that the Continent supplies, and, having sat in a hide to photograph orioles at three feet, I know that these luscious creatures are the main food given to the young. Secondly, nesting materials. An oriole's nest 'is slung from a forked branch, from which two minor twigs spring inwards. The main structure consists of strips of very tough bark. I do not know what bark it is, but it is pliable, and needs to be, for the hen knots the two ends of each binder to the branches from which the nest is hung. Moreover, it is very strong, for it has to withstand wind. Why does it not fray when swinging in the wind? Because the hen (not the cock ; he knows nothing about it and is not allowed to touch it) binds wool or some such material round the branch before she ties on the binders.
The nest looks at first like an empty net, but when she twists her body round in the finished yellow ball it looks like a net with a fish curled up in it. It is absurdly small, for the bird sitting on it over- flows round the edges and has to cock its head and tail. In fact it looks most uncomfortable, and, though not allowed to help in The building, the cock is allowed (or more likely ordered) to take his turn at sitting on the eggs. Oriole's nests are built in different trees, but in Switzerland wild cherry is perhaps the most popular and next to that, oak. I have seen a nest at six feet from the ground and another at 6o ; in fact they may be at any height, and they take some finding.
Once the human interloper is discovered he is escorted about like a trespasser, but nothing is given away about the nest. The best way to find it is to sit still at a distance and work by ear, and not to move towards the suspected spot until the place on which the birds con- verge is properly lined up from more than one angle. Finding an oriole's nest is capital sport, and in a big wood very difficult. In a small covert where the birds' approach across the open can be seen, it is a simpler job to mark the lines and discover the right tree. Even then that little round yellow ball takes a lot of spotting.
My advice to those who want to see on oriole in England is not to bother about them until May 15th even on the South Coast. Then sit downwind of an oak wood and listen, particularly before breakfast, for a whistle which is much more. human than a blackbird's (but nearer in tone to a blackbird's than any other British bird's) and which just might be made by a really good boy. I say really good, for a cock oriole when in the mood can make himself heard under favourable conditions at a very great distance. The French word loriot, pronounced correctly and liquidly with the first syllable stut- tered, reminds me of one of the calls ; and another might be rendered by the sentence " right you are " stated in the most cheerful manner.
The cat call which is inade chiefly by the hen, and only by the cock after the two birds are together, sounds petulant and bad- tempered. In fact it is a sort of screech. It is not like the note of any other bird, and is very hard to describe. The warble of the cock is audible only at a short distance, say 3o yards on a still day, and goes on continuously between whistles. It is not very unlike a garden warbler's, and when the whistle comes at the end of it the listener is apt to jump, for the sounds are so different and the whistle so powerful. The sight of a cock oriole with the sun on him would make anybody jump at the flash of colours, but it is not an easy thing to see.
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