Female Baltimore Oriole
I promised you a few days ago I would show some more pictures of birds that have arrived here on the bluffs above the Little Maquoketa Valley. The Baltimore Orioles start singing beautifully already early in the morning but when they approach our bird feeders they chatter mostly loud. Both, females and males, love to eat from the halves of oranges we put out for them and also drink from our hummingbird feeders to gain strength after their long migration. Later in the summer, during the breeding process, they hardly show up again near the feeders. Their nests are usually high up in the taller trees and their diet consists of caterpillars, moths, beetles, ants, bugs, and aphids.
Male Baltimore Oriole
Female Scarlet Tanager
The Scarlet Tanager is a lot more secretive. It is not easy to make a photo away from the suet feeder, because most of the time they fly in very quiet and land right on the feeder. After their short meals they fly away immediately.
Male Scarlet Tanager