Greetings all,
Yesterday I spent the day birding the Neah Bay area with Charlie Wright and Bill Tweit. We encountered Ken and Fanter Lane and their friend Casey at our first stop and we continued to bird with them for the remainder of the day.
Highlights for the day included:

Tufted PuffinHouse WrenPalm WarblerClay-colored SparrowCassin's Finch
It was a gorgeous day though a bit on the chilly side. Our first highlight was in a tree opposite the Makah Mini Mart - A Cassin's Finch! Charlie pulled it out for us to view breifly before the bird took off and flew down toward the small hotel along Woodland Avenue. Luckily, the bird popped out again on the edge and everyone was able to get on it and some poor but diagnostic photos were obtained.
Bill had found a flock of House Sparrows along the main drag in Neah Bay all perched in a small tree along a house opposite the Senior Center/Tribal Council and in among the House Sparrow's was a Clay-colored Sparrow. We all eventually obtained great looks of this bird as it fed on the ground among a small flock of House Sparrows and Golden-crowned Sparrows. While we were looking at the Clay-color, Bill also found a Palm Warbler. We then watched this very bright individual forage for a while in front of a house in someone's yard - the warbler would retreat to under it's deck!
Our next stop was to bird the road along the jetty, the Boom Road. The wind had picked up a bit so passerine activity was low. We scanned out towards the strait opening from here and picked up a Tufted Puffin flying relatively close inshore - very unusual this time of year as they are mostly well offshore for the winter.
The Wa'atch River valley was relatively slow - an adult Northern Shrike was one of the highlights, and if Geese is your thing, there was quite the variety of Geese with 40 Aleutian Cackling Geese, 20 minima Cackling Geese, 150 Taverner Cackling Geese, 60 parvipes (lesser) Canada Geese, and 21 Greater White-fronted Geese. Also 2 Trumpeter Swans.
We birded thed road along Hobuck Beach, which was a bit slow. One very uncooperative White-throated Sparrow popped up for a few to get on. The highlight here was a cooperative Northern Pygmy-Owl which Charlie called in - it flew back and forth over the road a few times giving everyone an excellent view. 1 type 4 Red Crossbill in among the more prevalent type 3 and type 10 crossbills was also unusual.
The Sooes River Valley was our next stop and near the willows along the water's edge was where we concentrated - Casey pulled out a House Wren in among the willows and brambles. An excellent bird for the location, and especially the date! A juvenile Northern Shrike was also present.
We stopped to bird the town of Neah Bay one last time before heading back home - not much more was active as the weather cooled down again. We did manage to relocate the Snow Bunting on the Boom Road of the Neah Bay jetty.
Some photos of the Neah Bay highlights can be found here on this eBird Checklist.
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S12012295
Cheers and good birding,
Ryan ShawTacomartshaw80 at hotmail.com