Any Oriole Experts?

[stevej37]

I have two pair of Baltimore Orioles that eat almost a full squeeze bottle of grape jelly every day.
The males are brightly colored and the females are the same size and duller orange.

My question is....why do the males have to feed the females? The pic shows a pair of them on the top of the feeder after the male has filled his mouth with jelly. He will then drop the whole works into the females mouth....over and over.

The second pic shows another male loading up to feed either one of the females.

They can't be new chicks....they wouldn't be that big? Or are they?

[stevej37]

Or...are the males loading up the females so that they can go back and feed the new chicks?
Why don't the females land on the feeder dish and do it themselves?

[wdfifteen]

At this time of the year I would expect those to be juveniles, not breeding females. Moms and dads both feed the juveniles.
Down here the orioles left for the treetops a couple of weeks ago. Haven’t seen one in days, and took the feeder down.

[pavulon]

Like so many birds, Orioles spend 2 weeks or less in the nest but still require care until they figure things out. I had a Cardinal nest in a magnolia tree this year. The parents are still tending to an offspring that’s been flying around for about 2 weeks. It’s fun to see and with all the rain, there is no shortage of food.

[stevej37]

^^^ That makes sense to me...I'm just surprised how big the juveniles are at this time.

I noticed last evening that one of the juvies would land on the iron frame and flutter it's feathers and chatter until one of the males showed up.
The male would make 3 or 4 transfers of jelly to the young bird and they would both leave. Within 10 minutes, it would be repeated.
As mentioned, it looks like the juveniles have not figured out how to land on the feeder dish yet. (or are scared of it)

[Bob Kontak]

Remember the turtle with the pancake on it's back?

[stevej37]

^^^ Claude says "Hi"