Olive-backed oriole

Olive-backed oriole
In Canberra, Australia
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Oriolidae
Genus:	Oriolus
Species:	O. sagittatus
Binomial name
Oriolus sagittatus (Latham, 1801)

The olive-backed oriole (Oriolus sagittatus) is a very common medium-sized passerine bird native to northern and eastern Australia and New Guinea. The most wide-ranging of the Australasian orioles, it is noisy and conspicuous. Not bright in colour, it is olive-backed with small dark streaks, with a light chest having black streaks. Females have cinnamon-edged wings and both sexes have reddish bills and eyes.

Where the green oriole specialises in damp, thickly vegetated habitats in the tropical far north, the olive-backed oriole is more versatile, preferring more open woodland environments, and tolerating drier climates (but not desert). Common to very common in the north, olive-backed orioles are less frequently seen in the south, but nevertheless reach as far as south-eastern South Australia. Their range is from the very north of Western Australia across the east and south coasts to Victoria and the corner of South Australia. Most birds breed during the tropical wet season, but some migrate south to breed in the southern summer.

The olive-backed oriole was first described by the English ornithologist John Latham in 1801 under the binomial name Coracias sagittata.^[2]

Nesting, Lake Samsonvale, SE Queensland

References