Chasing a rare oriole in Marathon

A Streak-backed Oriole was sighted yesterday at Post Park south of Marathon so I couldn't resist trying for it. I'm almost positive I saw it but my photos are atrocious. It was in a tree near me and instead of studying it to be sure of what it was, I tried for documentation. I'm slow with a camera and it flew way off outside the park fence into a mesquite tree. I did what I could, but not sure it'll be accepted so I'm going to try again tomorrow. I'll take a stool to sit on. Got tired of standing in the sun. Here are some of my pitiful photos of what I believe to be the oriole.

While I was at the Post Park I photographed a more cooperative Sulphur-tipped Clubtail dragonfly.

My son is heading back to Austin tonight. 😢 Here's a little of his most recent efforts. 

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UPDATE: I was doing a little research on that oriole. I had heard it was reported from there last year and not accepted by the record committee.  I found this comment regarding both sightings. 

Eric Carpenter For what it is worth, this looks to be the same individual that was documented on 2 days last year at the same location. The TBRC rejected that record as the closest match would appear to be some variation of the Central American subspecies of Streak-backed Oriole which might bring up provenance issues. Provenance concerns become less of an issue with a returning bird perhaps though I think the ID is certainly less straight-forward than it appears. It certainly looks different than the "expected" Streak-backed Orioles in northern/western Mexico. I am including one of Mark Lockwood's photos from last year to show the underside of the tail that has large terminal white/pale spots. The combination of the heavy back streaking, overall deep orange coloring, the extensive white in the wings (particularly the coverts/shoulder), and the undertail with the terminal pale spots are a hard combo to reproduce with photos of another individual Streak-backed Oriole. Some subspecies might have some of those traits and others might look similar for a different trait but not as easy as it would seem to find a bird that matches the details of this one. eBird has a few thousand photos of this species that you can certainly peruse if you are interested. I realize that TBRC acceptance/rejection is imperfect and may not even be something that any of you are interested in but I felt compelled to share this in case it affects your decision to chase this bird.

The person that first found and photographed the bird this year was Charlie Trapani. Here's his June 8th photo.