New World Blackbirds (Icteridae)

Orchard Oriole (Icterus spurius) - HBW 16, p. 770

French: Oriole des vergers German: Gartentrupial Spanish: Turpial Castaño

Taxonomy: O.[riolus] spurius Linnaeus, 1766, South Carolina, USA.
Closely related to I. prosthemelas. Very closely related to, and often regarded as conspecific with, I. fuertesi; the two have discrete breeding ranges, but no evidence of intergradation where ranges approach one another, and songs apparently differ. Birds from C plateau of Mexico sometimes treated as a geographical race, phillipsi, on basis of larger size and slight differences in juvenile plumage, but such differences barely detectable. Treated as monotypic.

Distribution: Breeds in S Canada (S Saskatchewan, S Manitoba and extreme SE Ontario) and most of E USA (from Minnesota and Maine), S in Mexico to Jalisco, Michoacán and Hidalgo; winters from S Mexico (Colima and Veracruz) S throughout Central America to Colombia and extreme NW Venezuela.