Big Loon Energy - Nov 15

The three standout features of today's count: 1. We saw species of birds that nest in Alaska (Pacific Loon), Hawaii (Black-footed Albatross), Chile (Pink-footed Shearwater), New Zealand (Sooty Shearwater), and Antarctica (Wilson's Storm-Petrel). All today. All in Monterey Bay. 2. Going into the day, our highest hourly loon count of the season was 600-something. I had been hoping for a nice warm-up period of gradually larger flights leading into our BIG loon flights, but no such luxury was granted--our highest hourly loon count today was more than 11,500. 3. We used a grand total of three different vehicles for windbreaks today, which might be a record for me at the Seawatch.

Driving over to the count predawn, it was raining and already blowing from the northwest--a sure sign of a good day at Pinos. The rain cleared out before the count started, but the wind persisted and built: by the count's end, it was blowing 15 knots at Pt. Pinos.

Pacific Loon flocks began appearing essentially when it became light enough to pick them out. First, the highline was the most heavily traveled, but I took quick peeks at the far outer flightline, suspecting that it would eventually become a river of (very distant) loon flocks. It did. Kai and Catherine, providentially, were out there with me and I had them focus on what was passing the Point while I stuck my head into my scope on the bay-cutting line. My face hardly left my scope for the next two hours: during that period, we tallied over 7,000 Pacific Loons the first hour, and over 11,638 Pacifics the second (0700) hour. Loon totals for the day were 20,155 Pacifics and 1166 Red-throats, with 0600, 0700, and 0800 all being thousand+ loon hours.

Surf Scoters pushed hard today too, with the 4255 tallied marking (so far) the daily peak of the season. The peak hour, 1086, was the 0700-0800 hour, and the flight was heaviest from 0600-1000.

It was a big alcid day too. We hit our peak daily murre count (5377) of the season so far; the peak hour was 1368 at 1100; there probably was not any time over the entire course of the day when, looking out over the water, you couldn't see a multitude of murres blasting west.

We also had 3 Pigeon Guillemots and 50 Ancient Murrelets.

We hope for good tubenose diversity and numbers on conditions like these, and we were not disappointed. The star of this show today was the WILSON'S STORM-PETREL that Brian spotted--a first record not only for the Seawatch, but, per eBird, also for Pt. Pinos. We also had 2 Leach's Storm-Petrels, a Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel, 2 Black-footed Albatrosses, and good numbers of Pink-footed Shearwater (67), Sooty Shearwater (57), and Short-tailed Shearwater (11). A multitude of Northern Fulmars were in the bay as well: we tallied 468 today, with the peak hourly count being 140 (at 1500).

Today was one of those days you anticipate when starting a Seawatch season at Pinos. Overwhelming, grueling, absolutely beautiful in the way that big scoter and loon flights are--and shared with people who love seawatching; love migration; love letting their minds and dreams go out to sea in the way that comes from peering through a spotting scope and sorting through the swells.

See the full checklist here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/293059

- Alison Vilag

Seawatch - Nov 14

Another fun day out at the Seawatch! Like yesterday, sunrise itself was tame enough, but a half-hour or so into the count, just like they did yesterday, Common Murres and Rhinoceros Auklets started pouring out of the bay en masse. We tallied 2509 Rhinoceros Auklets (peak hour 0700, with 1630 recorded) and 4958 Common Murres (peak hour also 0700, with 3200 recorded). Both murres and Rhinoceros Auklets were clicked by 10s during that peak hour but otherwise counted individually. The other alcid highlight today was a flock of 20 Ancient Murrelets that flew out of the bay drafting a Common Murre.

The swell today (it's king tide, too) was utterly dramatic, and just as much a part of the alcid flight as the murres and Rhinos were. At times it felt like a towering wall of surf was bearing down on the Point, and teasing trough-traveling alcids from the sea today was both frustrating and awesome: a ball of 60+ birds would heave into view, just to be swallowed back up almost immediately.

Fortunately, the ceiling today was low enough that the loon flight was both late to start (peaking around 0930 instead of 0700) AND it the flightline was relatively low in altitude: peak alcid and peak loon movement was happening in the same field of view, which is a rare treat. It was our first 1000+ Pacific Loon day of the season (1744 total; peak hour 0900 with 609 and several flocks of ~40), and we only tallied 101 Red-throats today.

The Surf Scoter flight picked up a bit today, with 341 tallied.

Yesterday, I suspected the thousand+ Bonaparte's Gulls leaving the bay were some sort of exodus, and that does seem to be the case: I only tallied 29 today, and also had 69 Elegant Terns leaving the bay.

Tubenose numbers were low today, testament to light winds. We had 5 Pink-foots, 2 Sooties, 1 Short-tailed Shearwater, 4 Black-vents, and 6 Sooty/Short-tails.

Visibility was limited to somewhat beyond the buoy for most of the count today, and was reduced to about buoy-distance for about an hour in the early afternoon. Winds at the Point were light all day, and at the outer buoy, they were light overnight, building to 8kt from the west by 1300 and 12 kt from the west by count's close. Pressure dropped from 30.11 overnight to 29.96 at count's close.

Tomorrow (Friday's) forecast looks to be the best winds we've had to date this season. I'm excited and hopeful over what will transpire: perhaps, my most reasonable hope is our season's first thousand-loon hour.

See the full checklist here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/292646

- Alison Vilag

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