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Posted by Roger Hammer on 13:40:43 08/13/09
There's a pair of spot-breasted orioles that are hanging out at my hacienda near Homestead. I had a pair of them two years ago too, but we don't see that many of them in the southern parts of Miami-Dade County too often.
They like to hop around on the leaves of my cannas to look for larvae of the Brazilian skipper butterfly. The larvae cut slits in the leaves and fold the flap over themselves, seal it down with silk, and then hide during the day, and feed at night to avoid predation. The orioles have figured out that there's a tasty larva underneath those flaps, so they pull them open with their beak, and grab the morsel.
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