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Historic Status

Sporadic, episodic, or plain old rare – call the Orchard Oriole whatever you like. It has never been as numerous in Massachusetts as the Baltimore Oriole, but for the past century and a half has proven to be a welcome addition to the state’s avifauna. Joel Asaph Allen commented in the late nineteenth century that at that time the species was most abundant in Massachusetts in the Connecticut River Valley (Allen 1878), although it was also found nesting in Wayland in 1887 and Ipswich in 1895 (Howe & Allen 1901). By the 1920s, Forbush noted that the bird could be found in every county in Massachusetts save for Nantucket (Forbush 1927). A decline in southeastern New York began to occur from this time forward, likely due to the loss of orchard habitat (Andrle & Carroll 1988). Nonetheless, in the 1960s the number of nesting pairs of Orchard Orioles started to grow in Massachusetts, which at that time marked the northern limit of the species’ breeding range (Veit & Petersen 1993).

Atlas 1 Distribution

Coincidentally, Orchard Orioles were just beginning to increase in earnest in Massachusetts as volunteers took to the fields and forests to collect data for Atlas 1. Overall they were found in only 8% (75) of the blocks surveyed. The western part of the state only supported a few Orchard Orioles, with but a single block in each of the Marble Valleys and Berkshire Transition regions. The Connecticut River Valley, with its abundant hedgerows and orchards sprinkling the well-irrigated countryside, reported Orchard Orioles in 6 blocks. An additional solitary block in the Lower Worcester Plateau accounted for all the breeding activity west of the Coastal Plains. The Coastal Plains itself had 30 occupied blocks, most located in comparatively rural or lightly suburbanized areas. The Boston Basin and Bristol/Narragansett Lowlands each reported scattered breeding evidence, but the Cape and Islands had more occupied blocks than both of those regions combined.

Atlas 2 Distribution and Change

Steadily expanding their breeding range in Massachusetts, Orchard Orioles have become familiar in the eastern regions of the state, and now call 28% of the Commonwealth “home.” This species more than tripled the number of blocks it occupied since Atlas 1, and it continues to show an affinity for the more low-lying areas of the Commonwealth. The patches of concentrated block occupancy in the west are in the Vermont Piedmont and the Connecticut River Valley, and many of these occupied blocks were new in Atlas 2. But it is in the regions from the Coastal Plains southward where this species has really taken up residence; with all such regions reporting higher than expected block occupancy, indicating the importance of this area of the state for the species.

Atlas 1 Map

Atlas 2 Map

Atlas Change Map