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Eurasian Golden Oriole

Eurasian Golden Oriole

Oriolus oriolus

Identify the Eurasian Golden Oriole by sound or photo and log your sightings with Birdpass.

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The Eurasian Golden Oriole is a striking, medium-sized songbird that breeds across much of Europe and into western Asia and winters in Africa. Males are golden yellow with black wings and tail, females greener and more subdued. It lives high in leafy trees, where it is surprisingly hard to see, and is often detected by its mellow, fluting song. It is the only oriole breeding in Europe.

Did you know?

  • Its hanging nest is slung like a hammock below a horizontal fork.
  • Despite the male's brilliant colour, orioles are hard to spot in dense treetops.

Voice

Song
Call

About the species

Identification

The male is bright yellow with black wings and tail and a red bill. Females and young are greenish above and yellowish to greyish-white below with fine streaks. The species is often identified by voice: in spring a fluting, melodious whistle, in autumn a harsher, screeching call. It is about the size of a Blackbird.

Family

Oriolidae

Size

Medium (thrush)

Colours

yellow, black, brown

About the habitat

Open deciduous or mixed woodland with tall broad-leaved trees – riverside forest, oak, poplar and birch stands, orchards, shelterbelts and large parks; in the east also more continuous forest.

Diet

Mainly insects, especially caterpillars, moths and beetles, gleaned from foliage high in the canopy; also berries and other soft fruit, especially in late summer.

Behaviour

A shy canopy-dweller that forages methodically among leaves and sometimes sallies for flying insects. Its flight is strong and undulating, like a thrush's. It migrates mainly at night. Males usually arrive before females; the pair builds a deep, hammock-like cup nest slung in a fork of a high branch and defends it vigorously. The song is a rich, fluting “weela-wee-oo”, the call a harsh, cat-like screech.

Sources

Photo: Apatura1955, CC0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rigogolo-(Oriolus oriolus) Lazio, isola di Ventotene (LT) 19.4.2024 (cropped).png

Sound: Sonothèque ADVL, XC730595, CC0 1.0 https://xeno-canto.org/730595

Sound: Jan Cibulka, XC488226, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://xeno-canto.org/488226

Text: Wikipedia (English) + GBIF regional observations + Wikipedia (Danish) + FinBIF species descriptions + GBIF regional observations + Wikipedia (Swedish), CC BY-SA 4.0; GBIF occurrence data; Wikipedia: CC BY-SA 4.0; FinBIF: CC BY 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_golden_oriole

See also