Baltimore Oriole x Bullock's Oriole hybrid

** This record was withdrawn from consideration as a Baltimore Oriole.
The following comments were influential in concluding that this bird was most likely a hybrid:

Cameron Cox: "The single most reliable trait for females is where is the yellow/orange brightest. In female Baltimore its on the chest, in Bullock's it is in the malar area. In this bird it appears the bright orange malar connects to the bright orange chest which leads to the conclusion that it is a hybrid. The wing coverts also have much more white in them than I would be comfortable for in a Baltimore. I've seen a couple of similar birds on the Gulf coast of Texas and have probably passed off others, for as Bryant mentioned, this isn't the typical appearance of a hybrid and at first glance is very BAOR like. "Typical" for this hybrid pair is very much a moving target though. One of the times when I've been in the hybrid zone in eastern Colorado I remember seeing five birds in a row, all hybrids, all quite different. In appearance they seem to function as a hybrid swarm though hybrids are less fit than either parent species as they oddly inherit the molt strategies of both parents and end up doing two prebasic molts pre year."

Mark Stakehouse: "Since this record is no longer before the committee, I can comment that yes, this appears to be a hybrid. Even though the characteristics of female hybrids are not well understood/established, there are a number of characters that are intermediate in this individual. The just posted photo from Julie Frost provides even better evidence of a hybrid.

As Cameron notes, the bright orange of the head and breast looks like it can't make up its mind what it's doing. You can see in Julie's photo that it's quite patchy and variable, that actually isn't good for either parent species. The eyeline is too well-defined and dark for a pure female BAOR, and the supercilium too prominent as well. You can see in Julie's photo that there are black feathers scattered in the throat. I also agree with Cameron that the edgings of the coverts are whiter than typical for BAOR, making a less-defined wing-bar that is more like BUOR.

The fact that it is apparently nesting, presumably with a BUOR mate, so far west of the contact zone, is also suspicious, and perhaps unlikely for a vagrant pure BAOR."