Wandering Aimlessly
Baltimore Oriole
by Phil Burkhouse
I do not like blaze orange clothing, never have and never will. I fully realize the safety benefits of wearing blaze orange in the woods and, while I comply with it, I don’t have to like it. When I hear statements such as, “If it’s brown, it’s down”, or “I heard some noise in the bush and took a shot to flush it out”, I understand the need to wear orange—some mentalities really ought to stay in the house and play video games.
There is, however, some blaze orange found naturally in the woods that I thoroughly enjoy. I marvel at some of the outlandish fungi robed in orange, but my favorite blaze orange outfits are found in birds. I love to see the little male Blackburnian warblers with their blaze orange throat patches and also a much larger bearer of the orange—the Baltimore oriole.