Summer has definitely gone, with only a few Savannahs, Barn Swallows,
and Yellowthroats around to convince one otherwise. Also saw one VGSW,
one empid. and one yellow warbler (lower case "y").

First of Fall sightings:

Green-winged Teal One pair on the lake.
Common Merganser Two flying up the slough.
California Gull Large numbers for first time this fall.
Ring-billed Gull Ditto.
American Coot Absent all summer,
as they did not breed here this year.

We did see one bird that has me CONFUSED. It was the size of a waxwing,
but looked like a female House Sparrow. The bill, posture, and size
were similar to a female Western Tanager, but the bill was more orange
(perhaps), and the overall coloring was too brown. It had a buffy
supercilium and an unmarked breast. We didn't have much time to see it,
as it flew off.

One remote possibility that comes to mind is female Bobolink. Comments?


== Michael Hobbs
== Redmond WA
== mikeho at microsoft.com