Tweeters,

I received a report tonight from Jack and Pat Fletcher about a Tropical
Kingbird (Couch's?) sighted Wednesday afternoon (11/17) near the 3 Crabs
restaurant in Dungeness. It was sitting on a power line, occasionally
flycatching, in the section between the restaurant and the town of
Dungeness. The Fletchers remarked that it was very yellow below, had a
noticably notched tail, and little or no white in the outer rectrices.

Also, Nancy Wiersema, who lives near the Dungeness Recreation Area,
reports a Mountain Chickadee visiting their feeder on 11/15. Mountain
Chickadees are very unusual on the Olympic Peninsula, having been seen
only once in twenty-three years of Sequim-Dungeness CBCs.

On the flip-side, this seems to be turning out to be a very lean fall for
finches on the north Olympic Peninsula. Red Crossbills made a strong
appearance in early summer, then, poof, disappeared. Evening Grosbeaks
visited nesting sites by the Dungeness River in the early summer, then
similarly disappeared by mid-summer and have not been heard or seen
since. Even Pine Siskins are much scarcer than normal, visiting few
feeders in small numbers. How do these observations compare with other
places?

Bob Boekelheide
Sequim