According the Birds of Washington (Wahl, Tweit, Mlodinow 2005) Lesser
Goldfinches have been known from Washington from as early as 1951 but
only consistently since the mid-1970s. Since then they have been
consistently found in Klickitat County and intermittently in Clark
County. In recent years they have been expanding dramatically in the
state. In eastern Washington they have gone from being a rare bird
anywhere away from Klickitat to being uncommon to even common in much
of southeastern Washington and seem to be expanding up the east side
of the Cascades as well, with increasing reports around Yakima and
further north.

In western Washington they have recolonized the Vancouver area after
being absent for most of the 1990s and 2000s. Since 2011 there has
been a concentration of Lesser Goldfinch sightings around Puyallup.
Just this past Wednesday, 6 Aug, Charlie Wright, Brad Waggoner,
Linnaea Chapman and I saw about 45 including a lot of young birds at
the northeast corner of Riverside County Park along Riverside Drive.
There are still only a few reports from elsewhere in the Puget Sound
area, but the way things are going more are likely to be found in the
next few years as they will likely continue to expand. A few
individuals have also been found in British Columbia during the past
several years.

Ryan Merrill
Kirkland

On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 10:16 AM, Ryan Merrill <rmerrill27 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Christine Southwick <clsouth at u.washington.edu>
> Date: Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 9:06 AM
> Subject: [Tweeters] Lesser Goldfinches
> To: tweeters at uw.edu
>
>
> How long have Lesser Goldfinches been in WA state? I thought that their
> range used to stop at the Columbia River.
> And how far north have they made it? Fir Island is the farthest north that
> I have heard, but I could be easily mistaken.
>
> Christine Southwick
> N seattle/Shoreline
> clsouthwick at q.com
>
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