Baltimore Oriole
Sarapiquí
A female Baltimore oriole pauses on a leafy branch in the Costa Rican rain forest, one of the many tropical locations where the birds spend the North American fall and winter months. She's not the same neon orange that characterizes the male, or the logo of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team, for that matter, but she still cuts an elegant figure in her own subtler tones of yellow and black. As early as the 1720s, people in North America were calling these orioles "Baltimore birds", as their orange and black reminded people of English baron and colonial proprietor Cecil Calvert, the Lord Baltimore, whose coat of arms used the same color combination. In Costa Rica, the name "balsero norteño" or "cacique veranero" usually applies; none of these names, however, would clue you in to how orioles are actually blackbirds, albeit with a fancy paint job.