I never have used frozen fruits. I suspect the Orioles and / or Waxwings responsible for taking our blueberries, strawberries and raspberries before WE can get to them. They like our pears too. :-) For offering jelly we use a shallow dish, like the kind you would put under a flower pot so it doesn't spooge water everywhere. Its shallow and heavy enough that they don't flip the thing when they perch on the edge. So how do you give the Orioles nectar? I placed some in a shallow dish and the starlings had a bath in it. LOL! What a sticky mess they made! Then they needed to rinse off in the regular water birdbaths. Would they drink orange juice? C3D

OK...this is crazy. I just found another oriole nest being built. That is 3 nests in my yard all within 15' of my house and all can be viewed from a window. I'm in Heaven!! 3rd nest, picture taken from my deck. This nest is only 6-8 feet off the ground, has me a little worried. Very dark and cloudy today. Karen

Birding by ear is a very difficult skill to acquire. I know some birders that are amazing at it. They will come home with checklists twice as diverse as mine, even after birding the same spots at the same time, all because they could ID many more birds by song than I could. I continue to work on it all the time. I get rusty over the winter! I currently can hear an Indigo Bunting singing across my street (as I type this). As a summer resident, I can recognize them pretty well. They basically never shut up. But for the spring migrants- forget it! I have to relearn their songs every spring. One of these years I'll retain that stuff better. Just as you said; these guys won't make a stage appearance for us. Makes it tough to learn, especially once the leaves are filling in. Many tree leaves are much bigger than warblers and those little birds are nearly impossible to see. Most birders I know just ID them by song instead. We can visit sites like xeno-canto to listen to clips that include song variations from each species that have been recorded and IDd. These are files that are uploaded by users. All About Birds is great but not as comprehensive. Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.xeno-canto.org/

Folks if you like orioles, enjoy gardening and have the space I have a truly cool tip: plant a grape arbor. I live in Boston near downtown and have always enjoyed gardening. Living in the city, seeing orioles was a rare treat... but not any more. Three years ago I planted a concord grape and trained it up to cover our 2nd story deck. The number of birds attracted has risen exponentially of these three years. Seeing ten orioles at a time is now pretty common. Also attracted are cardinals, jays, and catbirds. There are so many birds out there right now that there probably won't be enough grapes to make jam once they fully ripen. Do I mind, not at all