I didn’t notice at the time, but these four excellent shots of a female (or maybe first-year male?) oriole were taken on Thursday. The first is by birdbrain; the other three by robin54:
Early voting favored Bullock’s Oriole, but after looking through my Sibley I think I lean toward Hooded. Actually, I think the bird could easily be either one, and don’t see any compelling reason to swing one way or the other. So I went with Hooded, since we’ve previously photographed a definite Hooded with the birdcam, such that we know they’re there.
When I first looked at the photos, all four were ID’d as Bullock’s. My dissenting vote was sufficient to throw three of them into “Disputed”, but one (the last one) is still listed as Bullock’s.
Anyway, identification questions aside, these are great shots. Thanks to birdbrain and robin54 for getting them!
Update: As of August 23, 2007, enough non-Bullock’s votes have been entered to put all four images back into “disputed” status. So the system’s species count is reduced by 1 (to 24, currently). Personally, I think that’s probably for the best.
It was great seeing a new bird in the birdbath, I wish I was online at the time. I didn’t know what it was so I just said what everyone else did. Congratulations birdrain and Robin54 for the great pictures