Seawatch Report - Nov 13

Today was great out at the Seawatch: we had a monstrous alcid flight, a sustained stream of Bonaparte's Gulls departing the bay during some of the morning hours, and (per eBird) the Seawatch's second record of White-winged Dove. The dove flew out high towards the coast, then turned around and flew back, high, towards the golf course. It was a pretty cool sighting, especially since Blake Matheson was out there to share it!

Sunrise itself was tame enough, but a half-hour or so into the count, Monterey Bay started erupting Common Murres and Rhinoceros Auklets. We started out valiantly--that is, clicking them individually--but that was a bad decision. At one point when we were reckoning with consequences of our ways I took a binocular scan over the area straight out from the Point, saw at least 150 murres charging through the huge swells, and laughed out loud at the idea that we could count this volume individually. We then switched over to counting by 5s... We tallied 4302 Common Murres and 301 Rhinoceros Auklets today, with the bulk of this flight happening from sunrise-1000, though there was a bit of a resurrection in early afternoon. Our peak Common Murre hour was a whopping 1928 during the first hour of the count. We also had 3 Ancient Murrelets today, which gives me hope of more to come.

The Surf Scoter flight remains quiet: we tallied just 148 today.

Today the Bonaparte's Gulls were actually flying out of the bay rather than circulating around the scrums: I clicked 1066 flying out of the bay during the 0900 hour and didn't really have ANY Bonaparte's after 1100. In fact, it seems like there was a marked larid exodus from the bay today--we had just 5 Elegant Terns and comparatively low gull numbers. A morning Black-legged Kittiwake spotted by Robert Horn was enjoyed, though.

The loon flight was quiet compared to yesterday: 40 Red-throats, 357 Pacifics, and 1 Common; the biggest loon hours were 0700-100 today.

Tubenoses were somewhat scarce today: 16 Northern Fulmars, 1 Sooty Shearwater, and 2 Black-vented Shearwaters.

The swell was enormous this morning and a bit challenging to work with: so much salt spray was hanging in the air that it was hindering visibility, walls of water were breaking at the Point, and the angle of the swell was concealing most birds to the east of the Point. Winds were light all day at the count, but at the outer buoy were NNE 6-13 kt overnight dropping to 2 kt by 0900, switching to SE 6-8 kt in early afternoon then switching to N 6 kt by the count's end. Afternoon was overcast with a few raindrops.

See the full checklist here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/292290

-Alison Vilag

Seawatch Report - Nov 12

This was our first (combined) 1000+ loon flight of this count season. It's pretty exciting to realize that this is just the start, and that a week or so from now, we should be watching 1000+ loon HOURS in the early mornings at Seawatch. Most of the loon traffic today was occurring on the "high line"--flying out of the bay past Pt. Pinos at a high altitude, rather than cutting across west of the Point.

Red-throated Loons were the most numerous (total=312) today. The biggest flight was from sunrise-0900, the peak hour 0700 (312). We also had 445 Pacific Loons today, with the peak hour being 0700 (250). Common Loons (13) were, as is typical, the least common at the Seawatch today.

The Surf Scoter flight remains a trickle, with the daily total being just 127. I'm confident, however, that we've got some big flights of this species waiting for us as the season progresses. 14 Brant and 14 Mallards were the only other migratory waterfowl we saw today.

We had some busy hours of alcid movement at the count today, tallying 169 Rhinoceros Auklets and 1958 Common Murres. Peak movement occurred from sunrise-0800, with another little pop in late morning-noon. The biggest murre hour today was 0700. (total: 780).

Tubenoses also picked up a bit today: I saw our first-of-season Short-tailed Shearwater, and also had 7 Pink-foots, 2 Black-vents, a Sooty, and 38 Northern Fulmars.

The bay is still full of Bonaparte's Gulls. Every day, I make a point of dedicating a long, full scope sweep to counting (individually and by 10s when necessary) the flocks. Today, that scan divulged 1642 Bonaparte's, and a lot of the ones close enough to see were 1st-cycle. The age composition seems to vary from day to day with these birds, which I find interesting. Elegant Terns (daily total: 33) are still fairly numerous, which has been a treat for me this season. My prior two years they'd mostly gone by the time the count started, but it seems like the anchovies have kept them around this time. We also had 4 Pomarine Jaegers today.

Weather at the outer buoy was overnight NNE winds 4-6 kt which built to 6-8 kt in the morning. Around noon the winds switched to west, 6-8 kt. At the Point, the wind was light east to light NW in the afternoon, topping out around 4 kt. We also had an hour of dense fog during the afternoon.

See the full checklist here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/292291

 -Alison Vilag

Seawatch Report - Nov 11

Today was the wettest day of the season so far: It rained more than it didn't between 0700-1300, and visibility was hindered. Around sunrise, before the rain started, we had a nice push of Rhinoceros Auklets (daily total: 203), and the busiest part of the day's Common Murre flight (daily total: 289). The, the rain set in, and was perhaps the biggest culprit in our very slow Surf Scoter (n=64), Red-throated (n=117), and Pacific (n=38) Loon totals.

But the day wasn't a total slog! After the rain moved out, little flocks of Brant moved in (n=141), like they often do after wet and foggy systems; I enjoyed watching Parasitic (6) and Pomarine (1) Jaegers have their way with the Bonaparte's Gulls (my largest single scan today=636) and Elegant Terns (daily total=131) that are still very numerous in the Bay; Kai spotted our season's first Ruddy Turnstone; I saw three Pink-footed Shearwaters at about buoy distance--the closest I've had in several days.

The winds today were light S to light NW at the count site today; at the outer buoy there were light NE switching to 13 kt S from 0800-100, then dropping and shifting W 7-11 kt from 1400 till count's end. Pressure rose from 30.01 overnight to 30.07 by count's close.

See the full checklist here: https://ebird.org/checklist/S202175256

 -Alison Vilag