Posted by Gary Villa on January 01, 1970 at 00:00:00
I realize this is an old thread, but I'm beginning to believe that we have both species here. I live in Fort Lauderdale (near downtown) and we've had Spot-breasted Orioles in our yard for years. We've had then nest in our bamboo more than once, and I have lots of good pictures of them over the years. In all my old pics, the birds are quite clearly Spot-breasted Orioles. However, the last two years now the birds we're getting do not have any spots on their breasts. And last spring, when a pair nested and produced a single offspring, we got a very good close look at both the parents and the fledgling, which visited our Oriole feeder just outside our kitchen window multiple times a day. The fledgling was yellow, with no spots, and the parents are the typical bright orange, but also lack any spots on the breast. Otherwise they look very much like the Spot-breasted Orioles we've always had, but there is no hint of spots on the breast at all.