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Highlights: Pacific Wren, Green-tailed Towhee (photo above),
Purple Sandpiper, Sabine’s Gull Long-tailed Jaeger

        Things have really picked up at the Point and we’ve been spending a lot of time in the field. While the Pacific Wren is the most interesting sighting, it is also the most complicated. Identifying Winter/Pacific Wrens by plumage is very difficult, if not impossible. Our bird showed some features that are more associated with Winter Wren, but it seems as though no plumage feature is definitive and we have found photos of Pacific Wrens that look like our bird. What is definitive in the identification is call notes. We have a lot of experience with Winter Wren calls and our bird gave calls that match Pacific Wren. As a potential first state record this sighting will understandably be looked at very closely and only time will tell if this record is accepted.

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          Another highlight was the Green-tailed Towhee found yesterday (top photo). Unfortunately it was only seen for about a half an hour and we were unable to relocate it today. Another nice find was the season’s second Townsend’s Solitaire found on 10/14Other notable recent sightings include Sabine’s Gull, Parasitic and Long-tailed Jaegers, three Purple Sandpipers and Black-backed Woodpecker. There have been other recent sightings, that while not notable to our south, are notable here. An American Coot, one of only a few Point records, spent the day at the harbor today. White-breasted Nuthatch, House Finch, House Sparrow, Gray Catbird and Eastern Towhee were all seen at the feeders today.

       As we are getting later into the season overall diversity is dropping, but some late season migrants are picking up. There are still nice flocks of Golden-crowned Kinglets with a few Ruby-crowned kinglets being seen most days. The season’s first Snow Buntings arrived yesterday mixing in with the Horned Lark, American Pipit and Lapland Longspur flock out on the beach.  There was a very nice Purple Finch, Pine Siskin and Red Crossbill flight this morning. Out at the waterbird count Black Scoter, Common Goldeneye and Bufflehead numbers are increasing and Eric had over 11,000 Long-tailed Ducks yesterday. Hopefully the coming days will provide more excitement at the Point!

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Townsend’s Solitaire

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Purple Sandpiper

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Lapland Longspur

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American Tree Sparrow

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Long-tailed Duck

Chris Neri