Orchard Oriole Mania
Luke Pheneger
Hi all,
This is a long-overdue report, but I wanted to share an incredible phenomenon that Will Anderson, Nathan Pieplow, and I observed in Hale, Colorado this May.
On May 24th we arrived early to the Hale Crossroads eBird hotspot in hopes of finding some late season migrants. It was a cold day barely reaching over 50 degrees, with intermittent sprinkles, and fog. We had a fairly active morning, turning up good numbers of Swainson’s Thrushes, a few silent Traill’s Flycatchers, a Veery, Northern Waterthrush, some Yellow Billed Cuckoos, and even a singing male Hooded Warbler, but these are not the topic of this post.
Oftentimes it seems as though a visit to any open location with trees in the far eastern part of the state is likely to turn up Orchard Orioles, and today was no exception. Most parts of the property hosted a few singing males and small flocks, but we weren’t prepared for what we were about to witness. As we walked along the county road back to our cars, heading to our next location, we noticed a small flock of 6–8 passerines flitting around a modestly sized tree, what species I cannot remember. While we were trying to get an angle to identify them, suddenly, 10 Orchard Orioles flew out from the tree, crossed the road, and vanished into the forest—an impressive sight on its own. However it did not stop there, one by one Orchard Orioles kept flying out, first it totaled 20, then 30, then 40, 50, 60 not stopping until we had seen 96 Orchard Orioles fly out of the single tree. As we continued down the road, we began to see and hear even more Orchard Orioles scattered about that we hadn’t yet counted. By the end of our visit we had determined that we had come across approximately 145 orchard Orioles at the property. The previous state high count for this species on eBird was in the 70s, recorded by Steve Mlodinow, an impressive total in its own right!
I don't really have any conclusion to this story as this was likely the result of a weather-induced fallout, but I wanted to share the experience nonetheless. If anyone else has noticed anything like this anywhere else with this particular species I’d love to hear about it.
Good Birding,
Luke Pheneger
Bryan Guarente
There is a convergence zone just to the south of Hale, CO in that wind field. This is possibly in the wrong spot due to resolution issues in the GFS (ask about it some other time if you are interested). What I believe is going on with the 850mb winds is accurate, just slightly imprecise. The convergence zone should be slightly further north. And if that is the case, then Hale would be a good epicenter for where there should be a ton of birds getting funneled into.
Jumping back a few hours: https://earth.nullschool.net/#2025/05/24/1100Z/wind/isobaric/850hPa/orthographic=-103.63,36.58,2053/loc=-102.143,39.631 (5am May 24th), you can see that the same situation was there and the convergence line was much more in line with Hale. Everything in the orange outline (hand drawn, so not super accurate), should end up in the area around Hale and if this happened for multiple hours, then you have a really crazy good situation to get LOTS of birds in one place.
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Wow, that must’ve been quite a rush! Was the single tree a mulberry or something that would explain? Cool experience!
Chris Hobbs
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