Hi Tweets,

On May 16th, I located the Hooded Oriole near Bothel, in Snohomish County.
The owner was kind enough to let me watch from the road down the driveway,
but she was displeased that some earlier visitors had walked down the
driveway and set off her dogs. Please stay out by the road, the view is
quite acceptable.

The oriole was feeding at a hummingbird feeder, but spent most of the time
deep in the rhododendron bushes and other plantings. I was able to observe
it picking something off the foliage and well as off the ground. In flight,
the bright white median coverts really caught the eye.

Description:
The first thing that struck me was that the bird had almost no orange tones
at all, in fact the overall body color was a nice golden yellow. The beak
was a nice glossy black. The black face patch enclosed the eye and
continued down over the throat. The tail was black. The back was a mottled
medium brown in coloration. The median coverts was a large white patch.
There was a secondary white thin wing bar. Each primary showed a white edge
on the folded wing, except for the tips of the primaries, which were black.

The bird was observed on May 16, 2001 at 1545 - 1605hr in good light with
Bausch and Lomb 10 X 42 binoculars at a distance of about 30 yards. Barry
Levine was present, as well. I've watched Hooded Orioles on numerous
occasions in Mexico.

Marcus Roening, 1017 N Cedar St, Tacoma, WA 98406

Marcus Roening Tacoma, WA
mdr51044 at glaxowellcome.com