On 25 November Mark Peterson was talking on his cell phone with his wife when he abruptly told her he had to hang up. He had just seen an ABA Code-4 Streak-backed Oriole (Icterus pustulatus) come out of a brush pile at Fountain Creek Regional Park in Fountain, Colorado. Many Colorado birders, including the president of the American Birding Association, scoured the immediate area, but the bird has not yet been relocated. Hundreds of birders saw a Streak-backed Oriole from 8 December 2007 to 2 January 2008 in Loveland, Colorado.
A resident along Mexico’s Pacific slope to northwestern Costa Rica, Streak-backed Oriole first bred in the ABA Area near Dudleyville, Arizona, in 1993 and again at this location in 1994, 1998, and in 2002. It is casual in California but accidental elsewhere including the Colorado record and recent report, two records from New Mexico, and two reports from Texas (a male at Brazos Bend State Park and a female at El Paso). Exceptional was an immature male Streak-backed Oriole near Mercer, Wisconsin, during the first two weeks of January 1998. The Wisconsin bird was initially rejected by their records committee because of uncertain provenance (ABA Checklist, Seventh Edition, Pranty et al.).
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