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Orioles: Living in Two Worlds
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| Baltimore Oriole photo by Steven J. Lang, copyright 2003 by Wisconsin Society for Ornithology |
Imagine the lush green of a tropical rainforest with all the colorful birds and frogs! One of the beautiful birds feeding on fruit in Central America right now is our good old Baltimore Oriole.
The Baltimore Oriole spends its life living in two different worlds. Babies hatch in the eastern forests of the United States and Canada, where they grow up with their family. Then in late summer they join flocks and migrate to the tropics. They remain there all winter. Birds that move between North America and Central or South America are called neotropical migrants. Right now most Baltimore Orioles are still in Central America. No one knows exactly why, but a few Baltimore Orioles spend the winter in the north. Most of them move south.
Bullock's Orioles, which are hatched in the western United States and Canada, spend their winter in Mexico and in the American southwest. They arrive on their breeding grounds before Baltimore Orioles come back.
What is life like for Baltimore Orioles in Central America? Do you think it's always warm where orioles spend the winter? Read this lesson and find out!
Investigating Oriole Food Chains
Whether they are in the tropics or the north, orioles must
eat to get energy to stay alive. Sometimes orioles eat fruit. Plants
get the energy they need to make fruit from the sun. When an oriole
eats a raspberry, the energy from the sun goes straight from the fruit
to the oriole. This is a very simple food chain.
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Energy
from the sun goes straight from the raspberry plant to the oriole
in this simple food chain. |
Sometimes orioles eat animals such as spiders. Spiders usually eat insects. Insects eat other insects or plants. The food chain gets longer.
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In
this longer food chain, the sun's energy goes to the rose plant.
An aphid eats the leaves. A cricket eats the aphid. A spider eats
the cricket. An oriole eats the spider. |
Sometimes orioles get eaten by predators. Then the oriole itself becomes food in a food chain.
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In
this food chain, the sun's energy goes to the orange plant. The
oriole eats the orange. A hawk eats the oriole. A bobcat eats the
hawk. When the bobcat dies, a vulture eats it. |
Think about the different foods orioles eat. And think about the predators that eat orioles. Then get out your journals to answer the questions below. Some information that might help is here:
Try This! Journaling Questions
- Make a food chain that includes an oriole. How many different food chains can your class come up with? What is the longest oriole food chain you can think of? The shortest?
- Remember:
a food chain ALWAYS starts with the sun's energy going to a plant.
How do plants
get energy from the sun? Why don't food chains ever start with an animal
getting energy from the sun?"
Copyright 2004 Journey North. All Rights Reserved.
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