First my apologies for the late report - this bird was first seen around
9:00 am on Sunday Nov 29.

I saw a very interesting bird on my Sunday morning neighborhood stroll.
What first brought my attention to this bird is that it was being "buzzed"
by 3 Anna's Hummingbirds as it sat at the top of a medium sized cedar tree.
What immediately caught my attention after that was the color of the bird -
spectacular bright orange/yellow. If this were summer and I hadn't had my
optics I would have simply dismissed this as a male Western Tanager. But
this is late November, and I was able to get my binoc's on the bird for a
few seconds - but what I saw just didn't register.

This bird is definitely an Oriole - not a tanager - long slightly decurved
bill - right twitch. The color matches no bird I've run across. The bird
was bright orange - really spectacular with the sun directly shining on it,
and me in the perfect position with the sun behind me. The only black on
the birds head was a very faint eyeline - everything else - orange. The
bird had mostly orange wings with some black near the central wing - no
white patch or barring at all. Did I say this bird was orange? I'm trying
to figure out what exactly this bird was. The best guess right now is
immature male Hooded Oriole - but who knows. I was able to relocate the
bird in the same tree at about 1 PM on Sunday. The bird was at the top of a
medium sized cedar growing next to the sidewalk on 135th Place SE just above
the intersection of SE 75th, in Newcastle.

One thing that says Oriole to me is that the bird was being buzzed by
hummers - a competitor at a feeder perhaps? The area also features quite a
few abondoned apple trees that still have some fruit on them - could that be
the attraction? I have zero daylight hours at home during the week so I was
unable to check to see if the bird is still around - but an interesting
subject for those who are close by or might have the time to investigate.


Rob Conway
Newcastle, WA

robin_birder at hotmail.com