Eurasian Golden Oriole - Family Oriolidae
Slightly larger than a starling (body length about 25 cm). The male is bright yellow, with black wings, tail, and a "bridle" — a stripe running from the base of the beak to the eye. There are yellow spots on the sides of the black tail, the beak is red, and the iris is carmine-red. The female and chicks have a yellowish-green upper body and a yellowish-white underside with brown longitudinal streaks.
The voice is a beautiful flute-like whistle "floo-ti-oo" and a sharp "meowing": "vzhyaaa." It easily reveals itself with its call.
The areas where the oriole nests are reached late, in early May. The nest is built by both the male and female from thin twigs of deciduous trees, forming a hanging round basket with a rim along the inner edge, at a height of 3 to 16 m.
If there is no suitable fork, the oriole ties the ends of two thin branches together and builds the nest between them.
In the first half of June, the female lays 3–5 pinkish-cream eggs with rare brownish-brown spots. The female incubates the clutch for 14–15 days, sometimes replaced by the male. Both parents feed the hatched chicks. Males sing intensively throughout the nesting period. After the chicks begin to feed independently, a period of wandering begins, leading to a directed autumn migration southward.
They leave their nesting areas in mid-August to early September. By October, they are already found in their wintering grounds in Central Africa, covering a distance of 5–7 thousand km.
The diet of the oriole is very diverse. The main food consists of insects, their larvae, spiders, and other invertebrates.
It eagerly eats hairy caterpillars, which many other birds avoid. At the end of summer, berries make up a significant part of its diet. Only in very rare cases does it visit low shrubs, and even more rarely does it descend to the ground. If this happens, it stays just long enough to catch an insect or something similar. In exceptional cases, it makes a few clumsy, heavy jumps, as it never walks in a stepping manner.
The oriole is a very bold and aggressive bird. It constantly fights and chases other orioles and even quarrels with other birds—in short, it is never idle, especially during the breeding season. Its flight appears heavy and noisy but is quite fast and resembles the flight of a starling, as the oriole, when flying over large distances, describes large, even arcs or small serpentine lines; over short distances, it flies in a straight line, sometimes smoothly, sometimes fluttering.
The oriole is a pleasant and cherished guest everywhere. It is among the most diligent songbirds. Its song can be heard before sunrise and lasts with brief pauses until noon; it sings again at sunset. Even on cloudy days, it sings loudly and cheerfully, which other birds do not do. One pair of orioles can enliven an entire grove.
It is found everywhere.
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