Well, actually, there were three of them, and they were on the trail out on
Foster Island, just where the trail to the viewing platform is. I'm hoping
people can suggest good candidates; I don't have any photos, unfortunately.

Just about noon on Thursday, I scared up a small flock of three birds from
the right edge of the boardwalk, and they flew up into the willow scrub next
to the path. They were small, about chickadee sized, with distinctly
"finchy" bills. Off-white breast with no apparent streaking, dark backs and
head, brownish and grey, dark eye, a distinctly notched tail.

The odd feature is, they all had distinct pairs of buffy-to-white wing bars.
I saw the bars and immediately thought of kinglets (these were a bit larger
than kinglets, smaller than, say, a house sparrow), but of course, they
weren't. Not a hint of yellow on them, either.

Frankly, I'm stumped. I stood there with my Peterson's for about fifteen
minutes while they fidgeted in the tree, then one gave a peevish "mew", and
they flew off. Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm guessing something
common, in its drab fall/winter colors, but those wing bars are just
throwing me. I tried to make them into siskins or something, but they
weren't (unstreaked breast, for one thing). Help!

-Josh Hayes, josh at blarg.net