Delightfully Cool Week

It has been a nice week, if you like cool cloudy weather. Hummingbird and oriole activity is high - although the amount of nectar used seems a little less than last year still.
Here is a photo of a hooded oriole nest out at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Seems like an unusual spot, they often prefer stitching their nests onto the underside of a fan palm frond that is angled about 45 degrees above horizontal. This gives protection and allows sag of the frond.

The threads that they use to weave the nest are clearly seen, these are stripped off of the palm fronds in the surrounding area. Seems like it would be tough getting a hold on the wood to begin the nest. The male and female hooded orioles were seen making trips to and from on the last two Saturdays. The photo is of the underside of a shade ramada covering a picnic table and the top 'shingling' is a thatch of fan palm fronds and may be why it seemed appealing to the orioles! A couple fingers of palm frond can be seen to the right of the nest sticking out past the edge of the roof.

Bee control techniques are having some limited positive results. The best implementation has been to the exclusion of the orioles. More work to be done.