This is Brodie with Illinois Extension and I’m here with a new “voice of the wild”

This bright-colored treetop eater of caterpillars and sweet, colorful fruits. Is one of the most boisterous members of the blackbird family. They’ll sing their bright, sing-songy whistles loudly in a springtime park, clamor around high branches with admirable athleticism, then chase a rival through a gap in the trees; a bolt of orange and black disappearing with a harsh unfriendly chatter. This is the Baltimore oriole.

The vast majority of a given Baltimore’s vocalizations will be their bright whistles that can be mistaken for little else. But do note that their calls can be a little confusing, especially when the bird is foraging over something like a creek channel. This call for instance, might strike someone as belonging to some kind of shorebird:

If you’ve got a breeding pair of orioles in your neighborhood; watch for the duller colored females and for the hanging pendulum-like nests they weave. Here’s the Baltimore oriole again.

Thank you to the Macaulay library at the Cornell lab for today’s sound. Learn more about voice of the wild at go.illinois.edu/VOW