While at Lime Kiln Bay Wetlands, we spotted an Olive-backed Oriole in heavy shadow.
We’ve read that the Olive-backed Oriole’s call of “Orree, Orree, Oriole” is almost always heard before he is spotted, but we did not hear a call at all from this male. He was however making a lot of noise is his hunt for grubs.
He caught a very fat grub in this tree (sorry – photos of that moment were not successful), and he drew our attention to the nest we had walked beneath without spotting only a moment before.
The female builds the nest – cup-shaped in a horizontal fork, made from bark, leaves and twigs bound with spider’s webs, and she incubates the eggs.
It is the male that takes on feeding duties. Dad commenced to try to feed this enormous grub to one of his two chicks (sorry again – it’s not real pretty!)
The second chick seemed to miss out on this occasion:
Whilst present in Northern Australia year-round, the Olive-backed Oriole visits South-Eastern Australia in Spring and Summer to breed, nesting in forests, rainforests or well-treed urban areas like Lime Kiln Bay.
Bramandagram 