His strikingly vivid yellow appearance is further enhanced by a black stripe through the eye that gives him a stunning masklike appearance!

Meet the Indian golden oriole

The Indian golden oriole (Oriolus kundoo) is a species of oriole similar to the Eurasian golden oriole but has more yellow on the tale. A large bird, with a strong bill, long wings, and quite a long tail. The male has bright yellow plumage over most of his body with black wings and a black tail. He also has a black stripe extending across and behind his eyes.

This species of oriole is found in the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia.

The Indian golden oriole inhabits a range of habitats including open deciduous forests, semi-evergreen forests, woodland, forest edge, mangroves, open country with scattered trees, parks, gardens orchards, and plantations.

These birds feed mainly in the tops of trees on fruit and insects, picking items from foliage. Also catches insects in flight and sometimes feeds on the ground among herbs.

Eggs are laid from early May to late June or early July, earlier in the south than in the north. The nest is built in the fork of a thin branch high in a tree towards the outer edge of the crown, or more rarely between parallel branches. The nest is a slung hammock-like below a fork, or foundation, made of plant fibers, grass, dry leaves, cloth, paper, string, wool, moss, bark, etc, held together by grass or bark fibers about 20-40 cm long looped, or stuck with saliva, and pulled more or less tight between support branches. The nest is lined with fine grass, wool, feathers, down, cocoons, small pieces of paper, etc. A clutch of 3-4 eggs is laid within, and are incubated for 16-17 days, by both sexes. The male-only for very short periods while the female feeds. Young are fledged after around 16-17 days.