Seawatch Report - Nov 30

Today's seawatch featured a large sunrise Common Murre flight (3487 in the 0700-0800 hour; 3972 total today.) and another steady push of Surf Scoters (2250 total, with steady movement from 0700-1100). The loon flight was more of a trickle today, with 159 Red-throats and 685 Pacifics. Most of our Pacifics (594) came during the 0700 hour and were on the far outer bay-cutting line, while the Red-throats were more evenly distributed from 0700-1100 and passing high in front of the count.

Alcid diversity was low today: just 2 Ancient Murrelets and 62 Rhinoceros Auklets, and the only tubenoses were 1 Northern Fulmar and 1 distant, dark shearwater.

A high, distant flock of 31 Northern Pintail were fun to watch fly south over the bay, and I finally got my first-of-season Long-tailed Duck, a female, that had been tagging along with a flock of Surf Scoters but then peeled off on her own to fly into the bay. (Kai et. al had another Long-tailed much earlier in November while covering one of my days off!) There also seemed to be a little bit of swallow movement this afternoon, with scattered Trees (7) and Barns (6) setting off across the bay, northbound.

The Nazca Booby was present for all hours of the count today, and it was particularly fun to (finally!) watch it fish. Most of its fishing expeditions have seemingly been far to the west, but today a scrum formed just off the point, and we watched the Nazca dive for fish successfully at least 10x. Speaking of fishing...a Great Egret went tidepooling just below the count today. I watched it consume NINETEEN 4-6" fish over the course of about five minutes. (Yes, I used a clicker to enumerate these...). These fish were not dead when they went down the hatch. The egret spent the next couple hours looking quite uncomfortable in its tidepool, and I spent the next couple hours wondering how it might feel to have an entire school of partly alive fish inside...

The winds when we started the count today were ENE and fairly brisk, though they dropped by mid-morning and turned SW by the afternoon. It was dry, sunny, and visibility was good.

See the full checklist here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/297176

-Alison Vilag

Seawatch Report - Nov 29

We had another day that started with brisk NE winds at the Seawatch, which--as it usually does--means we had another day with a very small loon flight. (212 Red-throats; 245 Pacifics). However, the Nazca Booby stuck around for the fourth consecutive day of its visit, resting on the Pt. Pinos rocks for most of the day except for an early afternoon fishing trip. We lost track of it around 1530, and I'm not sure whether it went out for another foray (there was a ton of feeding activity to the west of the Seawatch) or if it shifted to a rock that was not visible from the Seawatch. When the booby returned from its early afternoon excursion, we picked up on it while it was still quite distant, approaching from the west. It's so fun to watch that bird fly...

The scoter flight was fun again today: 2249 total, and a fairly steady flight all day; the peak hour was 597 at 1000. As with yesterday, many scoter flocks were cutting the bay low and to the west of the count site, but not so distantly these long lines bouncing across the ocean couldn't be appreciated with binoculars (or even the naked eye at times!) from the count site. We also had 2 White-winged Scoters and 28 Green-winged Teal.

Alcid numbers continue to be fairly low: 9 Rhinoceros Auklets, 414 Common Murres (the peak flight for this species being 0700-0900), 1 Marbled Murrelet. Same for tubenoses--just 1 Northern Fulmar today.

Other highlights included 2 Pomarine Jaegers and 2 Band-tailed Pigeons that flew directly overhead at the count site--our first-of-season, which is wildly different than the last few seasons, when large flocks of this species have passed overhead...

The wind today was blowing NNE at ~15.5 knots at sunrise, dropping slightly (to 8 knots) and shifting more northerly in the afternoon. Visibility was good and swell was minimal.

See the full checklist here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/296747

-Alison Vilag

Seawatch Report - Nov 28

3 surf scoters (left) and 2 black scoters (right)

A big Surf Scoter flight and the Nazca Booby that continued for a third day (but had seemingly departed for parts yet unknown by the last hours of the count) highlighted this year's edition of Thanksgiving Seawatch. A lot of passers-by expressed surprise that the count continues on Thanksgiving--but southbound birds don't know it's a holiday, and when you're a migration counter you run on bird time and not human time, which I love. (Last year, 2023, our biggest flight of the whole year fell on Thanksgiving!)

Anyway, we had 4069 Surf Scoters at Seawatch today. The flight was heaviest from 1100-sunrise, with the heaviest hours being 1300 (894) and sunset hour (891). The bulk of the flight today was big, low bay-cutting flocks >60 that, though distant, looked like these awesome freight trains of southbound scoters. We had a couple >200 flocks in sunset hour that did pass directly in front of the Seawatch. This was marvelous--the amount of motion in a Surf Scoter flock this size, the twisting and coming together and stringing out and rising and falling and just sort of spilling across a sunset sky--is something that will always be jaw-droppingly beautiful to me, no matter how many times I see it. One of these big flocks had two Black Scoters at the very end, which was a fun identification via silhouette... I think Kai got cool photos. In total, we had 4 Black Scoters and 1 White-winged today.

The Nazca Booby went undetected for about an hour after the count started, then just sort of appeared on the Point rocks, where it slept and preened until somewhat after 1300, when it departed. (Interestingly, this is the same hour where it left yesterday, too!). I caught a glimpse of it in flight over the bay, distant and to the east of Pt. Pinos, during the 1500 hour. For me, it was just as exciting to randomly come across a huge black-and-white booby on a scope scan as it was when the booby first showed up two days ago. I watched it forage for a few minutes but it never came back to land that I noticed.

Otherwise, it was a quiet day! Just 235 Common Murres, 6 Rhinoceros Auklets, 5 Ancient Murrelets, and 5 Marbled Murrelets; 140 Red-throated and 369 Pacific Loons; 14 Northern Fulmars, 1 Pink-footed Shearwater, 1 Sooty Shearwater (and the mystery white tubenose again!), and our only (identified) jaeger today was a Parasitic.

See the full checklist here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/296495

-Alison Vilag