Seawatch Report - Nov 9

Today's count was quiet, yet enjoyable. The loon flight is gaining momentum, particularly in the case of Red-throated: we tallied 552, mostly in loosely grouped flocks of <15 along the "high line." We had 287 Pacifics and 40 Commons; sunrise-0900 brought the busiest loon hours. We also had a decent Common Murre push during 0700-0900 and ended the day with 612.

After the loon flight began to taper, I made a point of clicking through the Bonaparte's Gulls foraging over the bay, and got 1811 on one continuous scan over the entire field of view. (Fred was keeping an eye on the highline so this endeavor wouldn't result in missed scoters, loons, etc...). Elegant Terns (n=78) were also relatively numerous today, we had a late-afternoon Black-legged Kittiwake, and, perhaps unsurprisingly given the amount of potential small larid victims, we also had 2 Pomarine and 2 Parasitic Jaegers, the latter of which were dogfighting each other as they passed the point...

Today's wind was either light or had a fair amount of east in it; as expected on these conditions, tubenose sightings were few and distant. We logged Northern Fulmar and Sooty and Pink-footed shearwaters today.

Other sightings that merit mention today include our first-of-season Gadwall (n=3) and a Red-necked Grebe.

Weather today was calm and partly cloudy, except for 45 minutes or so in the early afternoon when thick fog settled on the Point.

See the full checklist here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/291383

 -Alison Vilag

Seawatch Report - Nov 8

Today was another windless, clear day at the Seawatch. In fact, we were talking about how it felt like there was no weather anywhere nearby. I guess we're all hungry for a good northwest blow to push another run of seabirds into the Bay...

Surf Scoters were, once again, the dominant migrant at the count: We tallied 1929, with the busiest part of the flight falling between 0700 and 1000; the peak hour was 0800 (n=636). A good number of today's flocks, like they were yesterday (another calm day), were cutting across the Bay to the southwest of Pt. Pinos. I also had a Redhead this morning--our first of the season for this scarce (but annually recorded) duck.

Alcids and tubenoses were sparse today. We had single digits of Rhinoceros Auklets and just 147 Common Murres, despite the minimal swell creating optimal conditions for detecting the "smallcids" (auklets, murrelets). The only non-fulmar tubenose was a single Sooty Shearwater.

There were an incredible amount of Bonaparte's Gulls foraging over the bay today; my highest single-scan count yielded 444, and of the birds near enough to age, it seemed like the ration of adults to juveniles was fairly even.

The loon flight is slowly picking up: we had 403 Red-throats, 112 Pacifics, and 18 Commons today; peak loon hour was 0800-0900. Also, looking at the season so far, we hit the thousand mark for both RTLO (1026) and PALO (1036) today. There was a small movement of RTLO and PALO flying into the bay during the late afternoon. As this flightline is quite distant and north of the count, these loons were likely coming in off the ocean and were not included in the day's tally, as we only record loons heading out of the bay.

The wind at the outer buoy was calm last night and built to ~11 kt from the NNE this morning, dropping and switching to light west during the afternoon. It was calm at the count site all day. The pressure dropped from 30.18 overnight to 30.04 at count's end. Swell was minimal and visibility was uninhibited, albeit a bit smoky.

See the full checklist here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/291087

 -Alison Vilag

Calf Breach at Sunrise - Nov 7

The crescendoing Surf Scoter flight dominated migration at Pt. Pinos today. We're already at over 14,200 for the season, which is just a week in! The daily tally was 4034, with two hours bringing us more than a thousand individuals: 1000 (n=1215 scoters) and 1600 (n=1239 scoters). The most-traveled flight line seemed to be the one that wraps around the coast; however, particularly in late afternoon and early evening we did have a few sizeable flocks that were cutting the bay to the west of Pt. Pinos, which seems to happen more frequently when winds are light, as they were today. The largest flocks were >200 birds, and a few other duck species--Greater and Lesser Scaup and Green-winged Teal--were mixed in. My favorite mixed scoter flock of the day contained 3 female Black Scoters.

Scoters aside, it was a fairly quiet day at the count. We had just 152 Common Murres (and 2 Rhinoceros Auklets), low numbers of tubenoses (a few Sooty Shearwaters and Northern Fulmars and 1 Pink-footed Shearwater, generally quite distant), and the loon flight still hasn't started yet--we logged 152 Red-throats and 74 Pacifics today, as well as 44 Commons.

Around noon, a terrific stream of Heermann's Gulls flowed past the count to a scrum near the buoy. There wasn't a lot happening with the count at the time, so I counted the gulls by 10s and ended up with just over 2700. I only saw one juvenile within this flock, though, and have seen hardly any juveniles since the count started this year.

Two Black-legged Kittiwakes were probably my pick for the avian highlight of the day. However, the best part of today's count was around sunrise, when a humpback and (large) calf breached repeatedly near the buoy. Just seeing this would have been a delight, but light winds and minimal swell meant that the morning was so quiet that we could HEAR the splash. And--we could FEEL the shock wave resonating through the ground where we stood. I was in the company of several dedicated Pt. Pinos seawatchers this morning--people who have witnessed many special happenings here--and we all acknowledged that our morning whalewatching would be something we'd remember forever.

See the full checklist here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/290883

 -Alison Vilag