Audubon’s Oriole

Icterus graduacauda

We once called these birds the Black-Headed Oriole. Aside from in south Texas, these birds make their homes in Mexico.

These birds are non migratory in their range, and so we find them year round wherever they live. Brown-Headed and Bronzed Cowbirds regularly lay their eggs in these and other oriole’s nests.

Science recognises four subspecies of the Audubon’s Oriole:

• I. g. nayaritensis lives in southwestern Mexico in the state of Nayarit.
• I. g. dickeyae lives further south in southern Oaxaca.
• I. g. graduacauda lives on the southern Mexican Plateau.
• I. g. audubonii lives in southern Texas and northeastern Mexico.

My only meetings with this species came during visits to the National Butterfly Center in Mission Texas. The Lower Rio Grande Valley is one of the few locations north of Mexico likely to produce a meeting with this species.