I heard him before I saw him, and before I finally found him, sitting high up in a fir tree at the edge of my property, I knew what kind of bird it would be. He visited here two years ago with such an unusual song and bright colours that he was quite unforgettable. The Bullock’s oriole is not a bird you often see in our area on northern Vancouver Island.

He is the reason I got no work done this morning. Instead, I prowled around the deck, camera in hand, searching the trees for movement and sound. When the oriole landed in the treetop about 100 feet away, I hoped no early morning walkers would look up and see the old lady in her housecoat, and zoomed in on the bird. I took a little video too and spent the rest of the morning trying to figure out how to isolate the part where he sings to us. So far all I’ve got is a headache, but no short sound clip. Maybe another time I’ll be able to post it.

I phoned my neighbour, who loves birds too, to tell her to watch for the oriole as it had gone over to the trees on her place. I almost threw the phone down when I saw that it had come back to check out my red hot pokers. I didn’t dare run out onto the deck this time and scare it away, so unfortunately this photo is taken through the smudgy glass pane of the railing.

Oh! He’s nervous. A second later, he was gone.

But now that Big Bird was gone, the tiny ones returned to their favourite snack.

I tried to get him to slow down as I didn’t have the camera set up for super-high speed for hummingbird wingbeats (does the camera setting even go that high?), but he wasn’t to be held back.

With the Spanish lavender so prolific right behind him, you would think he’d go for that, but he prefers the pokers.I know the bees love the lavender so maybe that has something to do with it.

I didn’t get much work done this morning. The time spent was “for the birds.”