Unalaska escaped Typhoon Nuri’s high winds, but strong weather patterns swept in some highly unusual birds. We got a number of "casuals" last week: birds rarely seen here and with very few previous records in the Aleutians. We also got a couple of "accidentals" from Asia, including one "mega rarity."

The past week has kept me busy documenting the unusual visitors: seven and counting over the past six days.

The first was a Surf Scoter, a sea duck that seldom ventures west of the Alaska Peninsula. The following day hundreds of Crested Auklets showed up in the bays. Related to puffins and murres, Crested Auklets spend their winters out at sea but unusual conditions will bring them into nearshore waters.

Looking out over Unalaska Bay last week was like being out in Pass -- there were fast moving dark flocks of alcids flying over the surface of the water. Some have even found their way into Unalaska and Summer Lakes, and the eagles have been plucking them up.

The next day things really got exciting when a Dusky Thrush, a very rare bird related to robins, showed up from the opposite direction, from Asia. That was a bird never seen in Unalaska before. There are records from the western Aleutians, and last winter a single Dusky Thrush appeared in Anchorage, causing quite a stir among birders on the mainland. Later that same day Bobbie Lekanoff saw two Bohemian Waxwings and a Magpie flying around town.

But the following day, Nov. 13, a mega rarity called a Eurasian Siskin appeared, setting off all the "bird alarms."

The weather was miserable, blowing and raining, and I was trying to relocate the Dusky Thrush. I was getting drenched in the spruce groves on Amaknak when a couple of White-winged Crossbills caught my eye. They were feeding on the spruce cones.

Suddenly, I began to get glimpses of a small yellow bird. I thought it was a warbler at first, until I saw the stubby beak. I couldn’t keep my lens dry, but I kept trying to get photos since I didn’t know what I had. It took me two hours to get some decent shots, but then none of the bird books I had in the Jeep gave me answers. When I got home I pulled every book off the shelf, including guides to East Asia and Japan. And there it was: a Eurasian Siskin.

I didn't remember hearing about one of these, so I looked it up in Birds of the Aleutian Islands, Alaska. Two Attu records -- that was it. What I didn’t know until later was that those two sightings were the only records for the bird in North America. Nervous about my identification, I scrutinized every photo I’d taken and finally "posted" the bird. I wrote up the details, attached a couple of photos and hit send. In less than one minute the emails began to flood in, and Unalaska was on the map! Rare bird alerts went out across the country and serious birders started looking at their mileage.

But birds and weather are elusive, and who knows how long these rarities will hang around, what really brought them in, or what else may be out there? I'm keeping an eye on that Eurasian Siskin for now, and as of Nov. 16 it was still around. An Orange-crowned Warbler, yet another unusual bird from mainland Alaska, was keeping it company among the spruce trees.

There are folks who would drop anything and fly great distances to see a Eurasian Siskin, but with flights so expensive and seats hard to come by, no one has contacted me yet about "chasing" the bird. The Aleutians are a good place to live if you’re a birder. You may not get to travel often, but the longer you stay the more birds you keep adding to your list.

The list this week: Surf Scoter, Dusky Thrush, Bohemian Waxwings, Black-billed Magpie, White-winged Crossbills, Orange-crowned Warbler, Eurasian Siskin.