Icterus galbula
Silhouette: Matt Wilkins · PhyloPic
In 3 days <5% in a week ~10%
The Baltimore oriole (Icterus galbula) is a small icterid blackbird common in eastern North America as a migratory breeding bird. It received its common name from the resemblance of the male's colors to those on the coat-of-arms of 17th-century Lord Baltimore. Observations of interbreeding between the Baltimore oriole and the western Bullock's oriole Icterus bullockii, led to both being classified as a single species, called the northern oriole, from 1973 to 1995. Research by James Rising, a professor of zoology at the University of Toronto, and others showed that the two birds actually did not interbreed significantly.
The Baltimore oriole is the state bird of Maryland, and the namesake and mascot for the Baltimore Orioles baseball team. The Baltimore oriole was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Coracias galbula. He specified the type locality as America, but this was restricted to Virginia in 1931. Linnaeus based his account on the "Baltimore-Bird" that had been described and illustrated by the English naturalist Mark Catesby in his The Natural History of Carolina... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | San José | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 2 | Guatemala City | 🇬🇹 Guatemala | |
| 3 | San Pedro Sula | 🇭🇳 Honduras | |
| 4 | San Salvador | 🇸🇻 El Salvador | |
| 5 | Minneapolis [Saint Paul] | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 6 | Detroit | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 7 | Boston | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 8 | Chicago | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 9 | Toronto | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 10 | Managua | 🇳🇮 Nicaragua |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | National Zoological Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 2 | Cleveland Metroparks Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 3 | Columbus Zoo and Aquarium | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 4 | Fort Worth Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 5 | Houston Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 6 | Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 7 | Philadelphia Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 8 | Akron Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 9 | La Paz Waterfall Gardens | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 10 | Aviario Nacional de Colombia | 🇨🇴 Colombia | |
| 11 | Tracy Aviary | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 12 | Blue Hills Trailside Museum Habitats | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 13 | Florida Aquarium | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 14 | National Aviary | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 15 | Ralph Perkins II Wildlife Center and Woods Garden | 🇺🇸 United States |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Baltimore Oriole sighting in Great Smoky Mountains National Park on a given day, based on 33 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 138th most-seen of the 173 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, and over a week to about 10%, if each day is a fresh chance.
Any time of year
In every month with enough records, under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Baltimore Oriole in Great Smoky Mountains National Park on a given day, so our monthly data shows no clear season.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Baltimore Oriole sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
59th of 64
Of the 64 parks where we can rate Baltimore Oriole sightings, Great Smoky Mountains National Park ranks 59th at under 5%. The best odds are in Point Pelee National Park (Canada, about 70%), Poás Volcano National Park (Costa Rica, about 60%) and Biotopo Cerro Cahuí (Guatemala, about 40%). All parks ranked.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Baltimore Oriole is recorded against all the birds logged in Great Smoky Mountains National Park (33 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
