2025 Pt. Pinos Seawatch - 20 Nov

Weather: It rained off and on at Seawatch today until early afternoon, when the wind--previously calm--picked up to a pretty brisk NW wind. Visibility was fairly limited during the biggest parts of the morning push: it was frustrating to have steady presence of dark shearwaters at a distance where the distortion was so bad the birds were impossible to identify. The swell was moderate. At the outer buoy, the wind was NE at 6 knots at dawn. It switched to NW at noon, building to W at 19 knots by 1500. Pressure at dawn was 30.01; it fell slightly to 29.96 at the count's end.

Birds: The dominant movement of the morning was a big flight of Rhinoceros Auklets--a species whose densest flights seem to coincide with rain here. We tallied 2830 in the 0800-0900 hour, when low flocks of 15-40+ were flying out of the bay from buoy distance all the way to the horizon. Our daily tally was 3363. We also had 578 Common Murres and 20 Ancient Murrelets.

The Surf Scoter flight seems to be tapering--for now. We had just 640 (and 1 Black Scoter) today.

We had 385 Red-throated Loons, 2599 Pacific Loons, and 15 Common Loons; in regard to the PALOs, 1000-1600 were all triple-digit hours, and this sort of steady movement continues into the afternoon, it often signals a nice flight the following morning. We shall see!

For what feels like the first time in days, we had shearwaters, including a wonderfully close Short-tailed that gave us a look that lasted several minutes during the last hour of the count. We had 2 Sooty, 5 Short-tailed, and 63 SOSH/STSH, and there continue to be many, many Northern Fulmars in the bay.

Other highlights today included a Pomarine Jaeger, 11 Black-legged Kittiwakes (again, most of these in the late afternoon count hours), and our first Forster's Terns (2) of the season.

-Alison Vilag

eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/tripreport/434443

November 19

Weather: It was a calm, gray day at Seawatch, with minimal swell and decent visibility for most of the count. At the outer buoy, the wind was NE 6 knots at dawn, switching to S 4 knots at 1100, then SW 6 knots by the count's end. Pressure at sunrise was 30.05; it rose to 30.10 at 1000 and then fell to 30.06 at sunset.

It was a really quiet bird day! We had just 816 Surf Scoters (plus 2 White-wings and a Black). For alcids, just 8 Rhinoceros Auklets, 1 Cassin's Auklet, 869 Common Murres, and 1 Ancient Murrelet. The loon flight was also not really flowing today: 139 Red-throats, 108 Pacs, 5 Common Loons. Interestingly, we did see a few flocks (each a few dozen) of RTLO flying into the bay in mid-morning. This is not something we see often during Seawatch, and they were not counted.

The kittiwake show continued, though it was diminished from yesterday's--we had 5 today. Also of note were 2 Common Ravens that perched for a couple minutes on a bench to the east of Seawatch, looking out at the bay like everyone else who sits there...

I'm looking forward to what tomorrow (Thursday's) weather shift brings. These quiet days were a nice reset from Monday's madness, but I'm ready for the next big flight...

-Alison Vilag

eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/tripreport/434079

2025 Pt. Pinos Seawatch - 18 Nov

Black-legged kittiwakes

Weather: The wind at Pt. Pinos this day had quite a bit of east in it at sunrise, and as the day went on it shifted to north and then built to a moderate NW for the last couple hours of light. It was dry and partly cloudy; visibility was quite good and the swell was moderate. At the outer buoy, at sunrise the winds were E at 8 knots, switching to N, 6 knots at 1100 and switching to W at 1400. At sunset the wind was 14 knots from the west. Pressure was rising: 29.91 at sunrise to 29.99 at sunset.

Birds: The day-to-day changeability at Pt. Pinos is astounding. Yesterday, Loon Hour brought us over 10,000 loons. Today, Loon Hour brought us less than 100. But it was still a very enjoyable day: we had a nice scoter flight, a wonderful late-evening run of kittiwakes, and the relief of not having to count back-to-back days of migration passing with the flow rate of a firehose.

We had 5553 Surf Scoters, which brought us past the 40,000 threshold for the season. The flight was heaviest from 1500-sunset, when big messy flocks rolled over the waves past the buoy, battled the headwind at the Point, and occasionally cut behind us past the lighthouse... We also had 6 Northern Pintail, 2 Black Scoter, and 4 Common Mergansers--which are quite uncommon at Pt. Pinos.

The alcid flight was quiet. 6 Rhinoceros Auklets, 1 Pigeon Guillemot, 788 Common Murres, 3 Ancient Murrelets.

For loons, we had 135 Red-throats, 234 Pacifics, and 34 Commons. (Again, yesterday, we had over 14,000 loons!)

225 Northern Fulmars were our only tubenose.

We all loved the kelpline kittiwake show today! Our tally was 33, and 27 of these were from 1500-sunset, which is kinda kittiwake-o-clock at Pinos. It's so great to have a fun bird with a straightforward identification that flies comparatively slow, comparatively close, and comes by at a time when the late-afternoon light so beautifully brings out the black M; most of our fun birds at Seawatch are not nearly so obliging.

-Alison Vilag

eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/tripreport/433861