Paul Lehman, WINGS Leader in Residence, writes with a very good find from Gambell, Alaska:

Tuesday: Woke to surprisingly light, variable winds, and in late morning found and video’d a WILLOW WARBLER in Gambell’s “circular boneyard.” This is the sixth North American record, all from Gambell in autumn: one in 2002, four birds last year. The 2002 bird was seen at several widely separate places over a 5-day period, and it now appears that more than one individual may well have been involved.

Four of the previous six North American records are clustered within a couple days of today’s date. This species is rumored to breed farther east in Russia than previously thought, perhaps almost to the coast at Anadyr, due west of here. The species then heads way, way west-southwest, to winter primarily in sub-Saharan Africa.

Today also brought, finally, my first wanderer of the season from the Alaska mainland:  a “Sooty” Fox Sparrow, a reverse migrant here from the south that occurs annually in very small numbers. There were also four Bluethroats (two of which uncharacteristically spent all morning flycatching in the open from a fence, with Northern Wheatears), a few more Arctic Warblers, and a small push of eiders past the Point: 2 Spectacled, 13 Steller‘s, and 30 King Eiders.