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Yellow Oriole | Icterus nigrogularis
Gele troepiaal | Turpial amarillo
The Yellow Oriole is an oriole of the dry coastal lowlands of northern South America. In the Caribbean it lives on the ABC Islands and Trinidad, where it is a bird of gardens, cactus scrub and mangrove edges. It builds a long, hanging nest pouch, which on the islands is often slung from palm fronds or power lines.
Voice
The song is a loose series of short, whistled phrases of a musical quality, with long pauses; at dawn harsh and high notes are mixed in. The call is a sharp, repeated ka-chek.
Recording: Juan Pablo Arboleda — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
20–21 cm, a medium-sized oriole with a pointed, slightly decurved bill. Mostly bright yellow; lores, a narrow mask around the eye and a bib from chin to upper breast are black. The wings are black with yellow lesser coverts, white-edged flight feathers and a white patch on the folded wing; the tail is black. The female closely resembles the male but has a greenish wash on the back. Juveniles are olive-yellow, at first lack the black bib and have browner wings. Birds on Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire (subspecies curasoensis) are paler with more white in the wing; those on Trinidad (trinitatis) are brighter, with little white.
Confusion species
Venezuelan Troupial Icterus icterus, common on the ABC Islands, is larger and orange, with an all-black head and breast, a large white wing patch and blue bare skin around a yellow eye. Baltimore Oriole Icterus galbula, a rare visitor, has no black bib: the male has a black head, the female an orange-yellow breast and two white wing bars. Young male Orchard Orioles Icterus spurius also show a black throat but are smaller and greenish yellow, with a thinner bill.
Habitat
Semi-open and dry country: thorn scrub with columnar cacti, dry deciduous forest, coastal woodland, mangrove edges, fruit trees, gardens and villages. Dense humid forest is avoided. It eats insects, spiders, fruit and nectar, foraging in tree crowns and shrubs. The nest is a pouch of plant fibres up to more than half a metre long, sometimes with plastic or string, hung high from a branch, palm frond or wire, often over water.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Resident on Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao, where it is common on all three islands. Local on Trinidad and the islet of Monos; absent from Tobago. Recorded as a vagrant on Grenada. Outside the region in northern Colombia and Venezuela, the Guianas and the far north of Brazil, and on Margarita and nearby Venezuelan islands.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
On Curaçao and Bonaire it can be found in almost any garden with flowering or fruiting trees, and the hanging nests on palm fronds or wires betray its presence even outside the breeding season. On Trinidad the best chances are in drier, semi-open country and along mangrove edges.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The species adapts well to gardens and other man-made surroundings. Locally birds are trapped for the cage-bird trade.
Scientific name
Icterus nigrogularis | (Hahn, 1819)
Hahn described the species in 1819 as Xanthornus nigrogularis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Icterus was introduced in 1760 by Brisson. Icterus is from Ancient Greek ikteros, a yellow bird usually taken to be the golden oriole, the sight of which was thought to cure jaundice. nigrogularis is Latin, from niger 'black' and gula 'throat', after the black throat. The specimen the first description was based on came from Brazil.