Baltimore Oriole
Icterus galbula
- Class
- Bird
- Rarity
- Common
- Observations
- 47,440
- Most observed in
- 🇺🇸 United States
- Conservation
- Least Concern
Description
The Baltimore oriole is a small icterid blackbird common in eastern North America as a migratory breeding bird. It received its name from the resemblance of the male's colors to those on the coat-of-arms of 17th-century Lord Baltimore. Observations of interbreeding between the Baltimore oriole and the western Bullock's oriole Icterus bullockii, led to both being classified as a single species, called the northern oriole, from 1973 to 1995. Research by James Rising, a professor of zoology at the University of Toronto, and others showed that the two birds actually did not interbreed significantly.
Summary adapted from the Wikipedia article “Baltimore oriole”.