North Coast Diaries

The case of the confused Neotropical Migrant

On November 17th of this year an adult male Bullock's Oriole turned up in my apple tree. It was working the holes in the apples that had been made by Northern Flickers. November 17th is a bit late for a bird that's supposed to go south for the winter.

All by itself, this is an interesting record, but there's more. An immature male Bullock's Oriole spent last winter near a suet feeder about 5 blocks down the street. The woman who lives in that house just sent me a note regarding an oriole there today. It is almost certainly the bird that wintered there last year and it's probably the bird that was at my feeder in November.

Wintering site fidelity is pretty well documented for routine winter residents. A Barrow's Goldeneye is putting in its 4th winter in Youngs Bay across from the Dairy Queen. I have 5 years of banding data that goes with wintering Sooty Fox Sparrows returning to the same place on the Neawanna River in Seaside. I have long suspected that there might be wintering site fidelity for these lost neotropical species, too. A Northern Mockingbird appeared at Hammond 3 years in a row and Tropical Kingbirds have an affinity for the area around Seaside High School that seems to be greater than chance alone. But one bad winter would, in theory, take these individuals out.

There's probably an explanation.... oh yeah, we don't seem to have bad winters anymore.