The Eurasian Golden Oriole (Oriolus oriolus) is one of Sweden's most strikingly coloured birds, yet also one of the hardest to actually see, spending most of its time high in the leafy canopy. The male is unmistakable: a body of intense lemon-yellow set off by black wings and a black line running from bill to eye, with a fairly heavy reddish bill. Females and juveniles are far more subdued, olive-green above with a faintly streaked yellowish-white underside. At around 24 cm long with a 44–47 cm wingspan, it is roughly thrush-sized, and in flight shows a bounding, undulating action with the male's bold black-and-white wing pattern flashing through.
Its song is deep, fluid and flute-like, usually rendered as "dü-dü-li-oo" or "dudl-io", carrying remarkably far through the woodland canopy with a slightly mournful, downturned ending — a sound with almost no equal among Swedish birds. Males sing most in June, chiefly in the first hours after dawn and again in calm midmorning weather, often returning to the same high perch in an oak or ash day after day; a harsher, cat-like scolding call is given when disturbed. The species breeds only in southern and southeastern Sweden — mainly Östergötland, Södermanland, Blekinge and Öland — where the small population of roughly 50–200 pairs favours tall, mature deciduous woodland with old oaks, ashes and poplars, as well as floodplain forest, alder swamp, parks and avenues of large trees. It builds an elegant hanging basket-nest of grass and bast slung in a fork high in a tree, laying 3–4 eggs, and feeds on canopy insects and larvae as well as fruit such as cherries and figs in autumn. As a long-distance migrant it winters in tropical Africa south of the Sahara.
Read about this species in Swedish →