December 5

Weather: At Pt. Pinos, the morning started, once again, with moderate NNE winds; following the pattern of the last week or so, these winds dropped off and switched to light west towards the end of the count. It was a sunny day with minimal swell and good visibility. At the outer buoy, wind at dawn was NNE at ~12 knots. It switched to W ~6 knots at 1300 and had built to W ~12 knots at sunset. Pressure remained high: 30.17 at dawn to 30.20 at 0900, then falling to 30.11 at count's end.

We had a really enjoyable loon flight this morning from 0700-0900. The volume wasn't full-bore Pinos loon insanity, but these two consecutive thousand-hours featured perfect light on flocks of at least a few dozen passing close in front of the seawatch. I think a lot of us Pinos people take this for granted, but it's so nice to have a seawatch site that both has good light all day AND has a relatively close flight. It's certainly not the case in other places I've watched and counted... We ended the day with 2918 Pacifics and 176 Red-throats, and we also crossed the 10,000 mark for Red-throated Loon for the season today.

Loon hour also brought another nice murre push (492); we counted 834 total today, along with 12 Rhinoceros Auklets and 35 Ancient Murrelets.

The Surf Scoter flight continues to trickle past: 303 today; the/a Royal Tern continues to make appearances -- we saw it fly out of the bay this morning, and it joined a big scrum just offshore the Seawatch this afternoon. The scrum was pretty fun, actually -- there were plenty of Glaucous-winged, Thayer's, Herring, and Short-billed Gulls amongst the California/Western/Heermann's conglomerate -- and Great Egrets, a Great Blue Heron, and some deft American Crows went tidepooling and got in on the inshore part of the anchovy feast. We noticed that a lot of birds looked comically pot-bellied after the scrum broke up...

A CBS newsman turned up this afternoon to do a piece on the king tides. I'm not sure if anything I said will make it to the news: I'm no expert on king tides, and I talked about what I DO know (Seawatch, duh), before the conversation was fortuitously diverted to Don Roberson.

We had our first identifiable jaeger in several days, a Pomarine, and also had two Black-vented Shearwater sightings.

-Alison Vilag

eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/tripreport/439092

December 4

Weather: At dawn, winds were moderate NE at the Point, and the full moon was glorious as it set into the ocean southwest of Pt. Pinos. Visibility was good, skies were partly cloudy, and the swell was minimal. The wind went more north by mid-morning and dropped off in early afternoon, going a little west in the evening. At the outer buoy, at dawn the wind was 15.5 knots NE. It went NNW at 1300 and was W at ~10 knots at sunset. Pressure at dawn was 30.19; it rose to 30.26 at 1000 and dropped slightly to 30.21 at sunset. These weather anecdotes are probably becoming redundant to read -- a reflection of how redundant they are to experience at Pt. Pinos! A common musing from passers-by this week has been how nice it is I have good weather to be out in. I'd rather have good weather and no birds than bad weather and no birds, but good birds and bad weather is a pretty standard seawatch pairing, and we could use a storm and some good northwest winds to shake things up. Unfortunately, there's still none of that on the horizons...

For the rest of the season, I'll keep expectations low so I can be extra grateful for every moment between now and season's end when the flight isn't a drip-feed. Loon hour today was fun: 775 Pacific Loons (we had 1745 total today and 78 Red-throats); 1100 Common Murres; a sprinkling of Ancient Murrelets; a Black-legged Kittiwake. Outside of loon hour, other highlights included 2 Royal Tern sightings (in morning, one flew out of the bay - perhaps the same individual photographed on rocks at Asilomar; during the sunset hour, one flew back in), occasional horizon Black-footed Albatross, and 2 Marbled Murrelets. We had just 125 Surf Scoters today.

The last hour of the count was highlighted by the very low tide, a beautiful sunset AND a stunning moonrise. Fulmar activity seems highest around dusk and dawn, lately, and I've really been enjoying entering and exiting each day's Seawatch by watching the fulmars wheel, arc, and circle as the sun and the moon punch in, punch out. It is a privilege to stand in one place and experience the passage of time in this manner.

-Alison Vilag

eBird Checklist: https://ebird.org/tripreport/438824

December 3

Weather: The wind this morning was northeast, but it was less than I expected -- a nice surprise! It never built much over the course of the day at Pt. Pinos, though it shifted more north in afternoon; it was overcast early, clearing during afternoon, visibility was very good, swell was big. At the outer buoy, the wind was ENE at 6 knots at sunrise; winds remained E until dusk, when they shifted to W 6 knots. Pressure this morning was 30.08 and it rose to 30.12 at sunset.

Birds: I didn't have lofty expectations for today's flight, so it was a wonderful surprise to have a good loon flight (2500 Pacifics during loon hour, mostly mid-level flocks passing in front of Pt. Pinos). We ended the day with 3329 Pacifics and 120 Red-throats. We also came close to our first four-digit Surf Scoter flight in quite some time: 934, plus three Blacks and one White-wing. A bunch of Ancient Murrelets - 63! - came through during Loon Hour; we only had one outside of Loon Hour... our other alcids today were 19 Rhinoceros Auklets, 1 Cassin's Auklet, and 514 Common Murres.

We had 2 Pink-footed Shearwaters today, as well as a Black-vent and a Short-tailed. Black-footed Albatross presence continues to build, which has been my experience in December at Pt. Pinos. I saw albatross during 7 hours of the count today, which made me extraordinarily happy; I'm certain there were at least three around, and at times they came almost as close as the buoy, which is pretty close for an albatross from Pt. Pinos.

-Alison Vilag

eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/tripreport/438551