Josh,

They sound like non-breeding female American Goldfinches. They often show
little if any hint of yellow.

Gene Hunn
18476 47th Pl NE
Lake Forest Park, WA 98155
enhunn323 at comcast.net


----- Original Message -----
From: "Josh Hayes" <josh at blarg.net>
To: <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2007 4:31 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] mystery bird in Arboretum


> 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
>
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