Since Sunday, I have spotted 4 times what looks to me like a female Cassin's
Finch. This morning I got a long look at it while it was feeding on sunflower
and was able to compare it to two female Purple finches nearby. It looked like
a different FInch to me. The most distinguishing feature of this Finch was the
large tuft of feathers sticking up on top of the head. The beak also looked
slightly larger and the upper eye stripe appeared to be heigher on the head and
less distinct than the purple finch eye stripe. The lower eyestrip was
virtually indistinguishable. Its breast was streaked in typical finch fashion.
I could not see the underside of the bird, nor did I hear it call.

I have an Audobons Western Birds Field guide from about 1990. The head on the
picture of the female Cassin's Finch looks just like what I saw this morning.

By the way, I live in Bellevue a couple blocks East of Lake Washington in a
neighborhood with lots of mature conifers. Also, I am relatively new at this
bird watching game (1 year) and have never seen a Cassin's Finch until
possible now. Might I be mistaking this bird for something else?

Jack

P.S. I too saw a Townsend's warbler in my yard recently. On Tuesday, one
bathed for nearly a minute in my bird bath. This is only my second sighting of
this bird in my yard.


--
Jack Castro (206) 641-7001
Sr. Technical Representative
The MacNeal-Schwendler Corporation
15400 S.E. 30th Place, Suite 101
Bellevue, WA 98007
Fax: (206) 641-6924
Email: jack.castro at macsch.com
WWW: http://www.macsch.com/