Tweeters:

At last have a chance to report on an outing to the Sequim area last
weekend. Between storms, Oct. 18 turned out to be a pretty decent day. At
the edge of south Graysmarsh (just north of Sequim for those not acquainted,
a closed-access site) in the morning, I encountered an active flock of small
passerines working the middle and upper canopy of a ridge of Doug-Fir
forest: there were 12-15 Yellow-rumps, a male Townsend's Warbler, several
CB Chickadees, about 15 kinglets, 2 Br. Creepers and several RB Nuthatches.
Hoping for a late Empid or tanager, I instead stumbled upon an odd
Dendroica, which I saw several times off and on over about 20 seconds before
it flew off. A first impression was that it was basically dark above and
white below, but what particularly caught my eye was a light yellow wash
that covered the entire throat and upper breast, extending (barely) to just
below the shoulder; this yellowish wash was very finely dark-streaked also,
with the streaks (which were not blurry or connecting) extending downward
from along the lower throat to below the yellowish wash, onto the middle
flanks. (By the way, unlike nearby Yellow-rumps, the bird had no yellow
blotch at the mid-flanks). The other obvious thing about the bird was
elongate undertail coverts and undertail spots; the net effect was that the
tail appeared relatively short, at least compared to Yellow-rumps' adjacent.
At one point I had the bird in a clear rear view from below.

The back, nape and crown looked grayish (although this may have been
affected by shady understory lighting) and finely streaked also. Two bold
wingbars and white-edged tertials were more clearly seen. There was also an
indistinct light supercilium above the eye.

My i.d. was a fall-plumaged BLACKPOLL WARBLER, which I've seen several of
back in MD-VA (though they are much more numerous there in spring), and had
them a couple times up in AK. On the basis of literature references, an ad.
male seems most likely. Still, Tweeters observers may have other opinions,
that is why all details noted are provided above.

Other birds observed Oct. 18:

Long-tailed Duck (Oldsquaw)--widespread arrival of several birds off Grays,
D. Spit
Semipalmated Plover 5--D. Spit
Red-necked Phalarope 2--off Grays beach, getting a little late
Thayer's Gull 1 (1st-winter)--off D. Spit, my first arrival this fall
Herring Gull 1 (3rd-winter)--as previous
Ancient Murrelet 2--well off D. Spit, as previous
Cedar Waxwing 1--edge of Grays
Am. Pipit 5--D. Spit

Lastly, I did not stay long at Graysmarsh in driving rain early Oct. 19, but
did observe a flock of 38 GR. WHITE-FRONTED GEESE headed southbound.

Scott Atkinson
Lake Stevens
mail to: scottratkinson at hotmail.com

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