Yucca Specialist

Scott's Oriole (photo by Gregory "Slobirdr" Smith via Wikimedia Commons)
Scott’s Oriole (photo by Gregory “Slobirdr” Smith via Wikimedia Commons)

This yellow oriole breeds in the southwestern U.S. on desert foothills and dry mountain slopes because he’s picky about plants.  He prefers places with yuccas.

Scott’s oriole (Icterus parisorum) uses yuccas for food, shelter, nesting material and nesting sites.  Not only does he drink the nectar from yucca flowers but he looks for insects on the plants.

When it’s time to nest his lady prefers arboreal yuccas such as Joshua trees or this tall soaptree yucca but she’ll use desert palms, piñon pine or juniper if she has to.

Soaptree yucca (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
Soaptree yucca (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

No matter where she places her nest, she uses yucca fibers to build it. According to Birds of North America Online, she “pulls at and strips off long, loose, stringlike fibers from edges of yucca leaves and weaves these together to form the main part of the nest.”  Fortunately there are lots of yucca species to choose from.

As with many other orioles, the female is not nearly as colorful as her mate. Click here to see what she looks like.

To find Scott’s oriole in the breeding season you have to be near yuccas.

 

p.s. I can’t resist telling you about their name:

The scientific name, Icterus parisorum, was coined by French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte who used the species name “parisorum” to honor the Paris brothers who financed specimen collection trips in the Southwest in the 1820’s.  Decades later Darius Couch tried to rename the bird for his Mexican War commander, Gen. Winfield Scott, but he lost that battle and had to settle for the common name: Scott’s oriole. 

(photo of Scott’s oriole by Gregory “Slobirdr” Smith via Wikimedia Commons. photo of soaptree yucca from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the images to see the originals)

One thought on “Yucca Specialist

  1. Baltimore Orioles do that here…I watched them doing that at the old place…but they love the common milkweed stems to pull the fibers to build their nests..

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