Shortly before I read Dave Brenneman's report of two Baltimore 
Orioles at his feeders in Fort Washington this afternoon, my wife Joy 
pointed out to me that we had a first year male Baltimore Oriole at 
our feeders, too.

She first spotted him about 2 p.m. today;  since then he has 
regularly visited one of our suet feeders and an adjacent peanut 
feeder.  He is very orange on the breast but has no black on the head yet.

With this strange warm weather, there must be lots of stragglers out 
there.  If we get really cold or snowy weather (if), we may yet see 
lots of interesting birds at our feeders in the coming month.  The 
Cape May, NJ, bird line reports numerous Orioles there at the moment, 
as do hot-lines as far north as Maine.

This is only the fourth Baltimore Oriole record for our back yard, 
with records going back over 30 years.  The others were all migrants 
in May or September.

The Brown Thrasher we had for about a week has moved on.

Mike Bowen

D. H. Michael Bowen (Mike)
8609 Ewing Drive
Bethesda MD 20817-3845
Tel/Fax: (301) 530-5764
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