2025 Pt. Pinos Seawatch - 13 Nov

Weather: Today was the wettest I've ever had at Pt. Pinos. It rained from the time I arrived right up into the last hour of the count, when a little sliver of sunset appeared right in time for our last big scoter flocks of the day to look gorgeous against. The wind at Pt. Pinos felt far less than what was predicted--there was about twenty minutes of gusting sideways rain--but I expected about six hours of that. I am very glad those expectations were not met... Visibility was quite poor all day; at best, we couldn't see much past the red buoy; at worst, the red buoy was barely visible. At dawn, the outer buoy was registering 27-knot wind from the southeast. It dropped and switched to 8 knots SSW at 1300. Pressure at dawn was 29.80, rising somewhat to 29.85 at sunset.

Birds: Today's storm to storm-petrel ratio was weighted more towards storm than it was towards storm-petrel. We did have at least two Ashies though, and any day with a storm-petrel in it is a good day in by book.

Other reasons why it was a good day: We had 3586 Surf Scoters (and 1 White-winged and 2 Black Scoters)! We had a late Red-necked Phalarope! We had 2 Short-tailed Shearwaters and 20 Ancient Murrelets! Even with the dreary weather, so many friends swung to bring sustenance in the form of snacks, hot drinks, and companionship! I got to see two humpbacks double-breach! And there were quite a few rain beetles (genus Pleocoma) flying around. If you're not familiar with rain beetles, I wasn't either, so here is some of what I learned: rain beetles are ONLY found in western North America. They spend most of their lives as larvae, underground. Fall and winter rain events elicit emergence: the females, flightless, stay in a burrow and release pheremones to attract the short-lived males, who fly around low to the ground searching for a mate. Insect lives are pretty wild, right?!

Male rain beetles were buzzing around the point searching for females in their burrows.

In addition to the highlights above, regarding alcids, we had 33 Rhinos, 1 Cassin's, and 526 Common Murres. For loons, 57 Red-throats, 44 Pacifics, and 7 Commons. We had 64 Northern Fulmars, 5 Pink-footed Shearwaters, and 4 Sooty Shearwaters. We had 1 Parasitic and 7 Pomarine Jaegers.

I think tomorrow morning, if it's not foggy, might bring a good flight--loons were moving a little bit in the final hour, of the count, winds tomorrow will be light, and it seems like birds are eager to move...

-Alison Vilag

eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/tripreport/432260

November 12

Weather: The skies looked wet, frontal, and a bit ominous all day but it stayed dry at the count. The wind was moderate from the south, visibility was good, and swell was minimal. There's a big storm offshore to the northwest, which is forecast to bring strong winds and heavy rain tomorrow. Will we get another batch of storm-petrels from this system, too? We had an ASHY STORM-PETREL this evening--a good omen, I hope. At the outer buoy winds were SE today, building to 21 knots by the count's end. Pressure fell from 30.04 at dawn to 29.92 at sunset.

It's fun to set up in the morning when it's still dark and wonder with each other what the day might bring. I thought it might be a big Surf Scoter day: it's the right juncture of season, their flight had a pulse during the evening hours of yesterday's count, and I've noticed they like to push right before a front. However I've thought for about five days we were going to get a BIG Surf Scoter flight and I've been wrong, so there's that...

Catherine predicted a big Rhino flight, since last year we had big Rhino flights immediately before big weather systems.

We were both right. We tallied 3431 Rhinoceros Auklets today, a number that will likely be in the running for the season's daily high! A whopping 2415 of these were during Loon Hour.

Surf Scoters flew hard all day. Morning flocks were mostly high over the point and 50-150 individuals. During the afternoon, we noticed more flocks cutting the bay: there is something delightful about staring across towards Loma Prieta and catching a low, distant wall of scoters so big it's several scope fields wide coming head-on (bright orange bill-on?!) towards Pinos. During evening, a few big flocks cut sneakily cut behind us over the lighthouse, and a gorgeous flock of 400+ came right over the count. The amount of motion within a Surf Scoter flock this big is just gorgeous, and I'm so glad there was a good crowd of us there to appropriately awe over it. We ended the day with 12,373 tallied. (Peak in 2022 was 4401 on 3 Nov; in 2023 it was 14,848 on 16 Nov; in 2024 it was 4480 on 27 Nov).

We had only 26 ducks today that were NOT Surf Scoters, which is crazy. A White-winged Scoter, a Black Scoter, and my first American Wigeon of the season highlighted these.

Common Murres had a big day too: 1798, peaking during Loon Hour like the Rhinos did. We also had 14 Cassin's Auklets and 19 Ancient Murrelets.

It was a slow loon day, which with south winds did not surprise me. 71 Red-throats, 231 Pacifics, 30 Commons.

We saw an Ashy Storm-Petrel twice during early evening. Otherwise, for tubenoses, we had 142 Northern Fulmars, 4 Pink-footed Shearwaters, 148 Sooty Shearwaters, and 3 Short-tailed Shearwaters.

Other highlights: 3 Royal Terns, 2 Parasitic and 3 Pomarine Jaegers, and 660 Band-tailed Pigeons representing several flocks that milled around high above Pt. Pinos. Where else but Pinos can you see big, dynamic flocks of Surf Scoters and Band-tailed Pigeons in the same field of view?!

-Alison Vilag

eBird Checklist - https://ebird.org/tripreport/431906

November 11

Weather: It was foggy today, but, contrary to expectation, the fog was not crippling for most of the count. We could see the red buoy (albeit not far beyond it) for most of the day, and we had a really fun, diverse Loon Hour! (Loon Hour is the 0700-0800 hour, named such because when the Pacifics start flying by the tens of thousands an hour, Loon Hour is almost always where it falls.) It was fairly calm at dawn and dusk, but wind at the count was moderate from the SW for most of the day. At the outer buoy it was blowing ENE at 6 knots at dawn, and by 1100 had switched to SE and built to 12 knots, switching to south but generally sustaining speed through dusk. Pressure at was was 30.08; at dusk it had dropped to 30.03.

Birds: We had our biggest (so far) Surf Scoter flight of the season yesterday: 3651! This puts us over the 10,000 threshold for this season. The flight was strongest from dawn through Loon Hour and again from 1400-1700. The fog kept afternoon flocks low, and it was awesome to see triple-digit scoter flocks piling, spilling, shapeshifting out at the fogline. We had 2 White-winged Scoters and a Black Scoter, as well as 71 Brant, which usually appear when it's foggy weather and stormy somewhere offshore.

We had a great murre and Rhinoceros Auklet flight from dawn-loon hour; daily tallies: 1490 Common Murre, 440 Rhinoceros Auklet, 2 Cassin's Auklet, 9 Ancient Murrelet.

Re: loons we had 64 Red-throats, 722 Pacifics (574 during Loon Hour--surely, a thousand-hour is on our near horizons!), and 20 Commons. The flight was low-altitude, and there was some movement on the outer line.

There were wonderful amounts of Northern Fulmars in the bay today; we tallied 146. Also 44 Sooty Shearwaters, 3 Pink-foots--our first in a few days--and a storm-petrel sp. that I think was a Fork-tailed. Many Red Phalaropes continue to raft up in these reaches of Monterey Bay--my conservative estimate of these rafts yesterday was 700 birds.

We had 3 Parasitic and 4 Pomarine Jaegers, a Black-legged Kittiwake, 635 Bonaparte's Gulls, and a marked influx of "different" gulls: all of a sudden Californias are a more prevalent part of the mix, and we are seeing more Glaucous-winged, Thayer's, and Short-billed.

Finally, there was a little Cedar Waxwing movement over the point today--just 32 individuals, but several different small flocks, and this movement took place over a few hours. One of the whalewatching boats saw a Short-eared Owl several miles out in the bay today...hoping we have one (or at least enough visibility to see one at the ranges that we do here haha) before too long.

-Alison Vilag

eBird Checklist - https://ebird.org/tripreport/431723