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Full disclosure: The Baltimore oriole is my favorite bird. This robin-sized songbird cannot be bettered. It has brilliant orange, black and white plumage, is armed with both a syrupy sweet song and an acerbic rattle, and resides in the most serene rural habitats. Its finely woven pendulum of a nest is impenetrable to predators and also a work of art. The only problem is that Baltimore orioles, like their relative the orchard oriole, migrate deep into Mexico and Central America for most of the year, normally gracing our shores only from May-August.

It is always a treat when a Baltimore oriole decides to tough it out for the winter and finds a host willing to provide sliced oranges, grapes and jelly all winter long. A severe cold spell, or an extended vacation by the homeowner, will doom these tropically evolved birds, but each year a few try to make it in Virginia. In fact, more are staying each winter, with over 400 in the United States in 2017, according to data from the Christmas Bird Count. A similar spike occurred in the late 1960s but that trend died out.

Last week started off spectacularly as I was invited by a very gracious homeowner to enjoy her five overwintering Baltimore orioles. Present since November, they are eating suet flavored with hot peppers, jelly and fresh grapes. What a thrill it was for my students to enjoy these jewels among the grayness of Williamsburg’s dreariest month.

Then, on Friday, I extended my oriole luck by driving to Pennsylvania where an adult male of another species, the closely related black-backed oriole, had been spotted at a feeder in the suburbs of Reading. I set up my telescope in the driveway across the street with 50 other birders and waited a tense 90 minutes until this extreme drifter came into view at a feeder adorned fresh grapes and oranges. It was gorgeous, although a bit sinister looking with its orange eye patches and extensive black and white cape.

Because it’s the first sighting of this species ever in North America, birders are flocking. I was the 997th person to sign the guest book, and new recruits were arriving constantly.

How a black-backed oriole got from the southern Mexican highlands, where it eats dormant monarch butterflies, to a cul-de-sac in Pennsylvania is unknowable. They do migrate within Mexico, and perhaps it got swept up in storms last fall and was carried across the border. From Arizona it may have oriented northeast instead of southwest, and just kept wandering until it happened on some oranges and thought it was back in monarch country. Or it may have been smuggled in as a pet. Regardless of its intriguing origins, I was thrilled to have a two-oriole week in February.

Cristol teaches in the Biology Department at the College of William and Mary and can be contacted at dacris@wm.edu. To discover local birding opportunities visit williamsburgbirdclub.org/.