Hooded Oriole

Yeah, right, Laurie.  Not's no oriole, there's not a bit  of orange anywhere.  Au contraire mes amies, 'tis truly a Hooded oriole... a female.  There are some birds whose sex you can't tell apart, there are some with slight variations between the male and female but others are completely dimorphic. This is one of those species.  I keep missing getting the male by a split second. Can't wait to get one of each on the same day so I can put them side-by-side.

This gal looks like she's guarding the fresh fruit but in actuality kept changing positions and grips to get as much of the orange as possible.  If you have suet feeders which you don't use in the summer, try slapping orange halves and pieces in them.  I haven't seen one of my yard birds not enjoying it.  I've even seen Zippy poke at it a few times!

Since this was supposed to be my Mother's Day blip, the plan was to take a nice photo of her.  Unfortunately, I was feeling pretty ill.  I did manage to get over there in the evening because her TV went wacky and the caregiver couldn't figure it out. But Super Daughter got everything under control.