November 16

Great SUSC day! The morning crew, Catherine, Kai, John, and Ashley, had to battle driving rains for most of the morning. Even with reduced visibility, there were nice views of thousands of Surf Scoters (SUSC) leaving the bay. Amanda, Karen, and Fred took over at noon, getting the opportunity to put their rain gear to the test as well. The SUSCs continued to go by in big numbers, but an Ashy Storm-Petrel and a few very close groups of Brant geese in lovely golden light when the rain slackened was an afternoon highlight. We had nice company in the late afternoon when the rain finally ended, with some morning counters returning plus our awesome CSUMB buddy, Abraham, there for good conversation. We got to show the enormous raft of Southern Sea Otters to a group that came to the coast specifically so that one person could see otters in the wild and they were just about in tears at seeing all of the cute otters. Folks walking by were intrigued and/or confused by our excited cheering when the last few massive SUSC flocks came by in the dimming light. What a sight! Another glorious day at Point Pinos.

- Amanda

eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/tripreport/433302

November 15

Weather: It was a fairly calm, drizzly day at Pt. Pinos, with minimal swell and somewhat restricted visibility. At the outer buoy, winds were light and variable until 1300, when they started picking up from the SSE, peaking at ~15.5 knots at 1500. Pressure dropped over the course of the day from 29.98 at dawn to 29.78 at sunset.

Birds: It was a fairly quiet day at Seawatch, in terms of volume, but it was, as always, a special day. There were some noteworthy marine mammal encounters: a fur seal "jug-handling" offshore, my first two gray whales of this year's seawatch, and a sea otter who cached her pup amongst the tidepool rocks just below the count site. There are an incredible amount of Northern Fulmars in the bay right now. Catherine did a horizon-horizon sweep, which took about twenty minutes, and clicked 121! It was not uncommon to have a half-dozen or so arcing through any given field of view over the course of the day. We also had a beautiful Common Loon flight. Often, the bulk of Common Loon movement at Pt. Pinos happens FAR to the east over Highway 1. You can hardly make them out at that distance. However, yesterday, a couple flocks flew directly over the Seawatch heading due south (this is different from the other loon species' flightlines). Our favorite flock was a loose, high line that stretched from Booby Rock (where the Nazca first hung out beyond Pt. Pinos last fall) to John Denver. It was as if a front of Common Loons passed over. Between 0700-100 big groups of Band-tailed Pigeons milled around high overhead. And there was an interesting, very dark juvenile Red-tailed Hawk that gave us a puzzle for a bit. Though most of my Seawatch companions left to go see the Moss Landing King Eider that was found this morning, they returned for the final drizzly hour, and that was a great morale boost.

We had just 507 Surf Scoters today. For alcids, we had 13 Rhinos, 1 Marbled Murrelet, 520 Common Murres, and 5 Ancient Murrelets. We had 91 Red-throated, 271 Pacifics, and 84 Common Loons. Northern Fulmar was our only tubenose today. Highlights: a Black-legged Kittiwake following a fishing boat on its way in, and 2 Red-necked Grebes that flew out of the bay together and quite close. There really were not many birds today! During the last hour of the count, we had only two Heermann's Gulls--usually, it's at least a couple hundred!

-Alison Vilag

eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/tripreport/433059

November 14

Weather: The early morning hours were foggy and thick with salt spray because of the high tide and storm-spawned swells; we could barely see to the buoy for several hours. Visibility improved by afternoon, however, and was so good at sunset that I could briefly see an albatross arcing out at the limits of where my scope reaches. It was calm at Pt. Pinos all day, sunny in the afternoon, and the swell was monumental, the sort that gives you sea legs on land if you look at it in the spotting scope for too long. At the outer buoy, winds were light and variable all morning, staying west at about 8 knots from 1400-sunset. Pressure rose from 29.88 at dawn to 29.95 at sunset.

Birds: It was quite quiet at the count today, with the highlight being an evening Black-legged Kittiwake. Often, our calm-day kittiwakes cruise by during the last couple hours of the count...

The Surf Scoter flight is greatly diminished from the last two days: just 810, today, with most movement in the morning. The loon flight is picking up, subtly: we had 203 Red-throats, 338 Pacifics, and 97 Commons--a good daily count for this latter species. Loon movement was strongest from Loon Hour (0700)-1000 today.

Alcids were very sparse today! Just 16 Rhinos, 1 Cassin's, 2 Pigeon Guillemots, 50 Common Murres, and 8 Ancient Murrelets.

Tubenose diversity was low: that sunset albatross sp., 19 Sooty Shearwaters, and 173 Northern Fulmars (the highest horizon-horizon count for the fulmars was 59).

A Pomarine Jaeger and a Red-necked Grebe were part of our less-common seabird contingent, and on the landbird front, we had a flock of 109 Band-tailed Pigeons milling around high above the Point during the morning.

For the last two days, there has been a marked increase in outbound Brown Pelicans, and yesterday evening, very high flocks of Heermann's Gulls were also flying out of the bay, which makes me wonder if they, too, are migrating.

-Alison Vilag

eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/tripreport/432605