November 15

Weather: It was a fairly calm, drizzly day at Pt. Pinos, with minimal swell and somewhat restricted visibility. At the outer buoy, winds were light and variable until 1300, when they started picking up from the SSE, peaking at ~15.5 knots at 1500. Pressure dropped over the course of the day from 29.98 at dawn to 29.78 at sunset.

Birds: It was a fairly quiet day at Seawatch, in terms of volume, but it was, as always, a special day. There were some noteworthy marine mammal encounters: a fur seal "jug-handling" offshore, my first two gray whales of this year's seawatch, and a sea otter who cached her pup amongst the tidepool rocks just below the count site. There are an incredible amount of Northern Fulmars in the bay right now. Catherine did a horizon-horizon sweep, which took about twenty minutes, and clicked 121! It was not uncommon to have a half-dozen or so arcing through any given field of view over the course of the day. We also had a beautiful Common Loon flight. Often, the bulk of Common Loon movement at Pt. Pinos happens FAR to the east over Highway 1. You can hardly make them out at that distance. However, yesterday, a couple flocks flew directly over the Seawatch heading due south (this is different from the other loon species' flightlines). Our favorite flock was a loose, high line that stretched from Booby Rock (where the Nazca first hung out beyond Pt. Pinos last fall) to John Denver. It was as if a front of Common Loons passed over. Between 0700-100 big groups of Band-tailed Pigeons milled around high overhead. And there was an interesting, very dark juvenile Red-tailed Hawk that gave us a puzzle for a bit. Though most of my Seawatch companions left to go see the Moss Landing King Eider that was found this morning, they returned for the final drizzly hour, and that was a great morale boost.

We had just 507 Surf Scoters today. For alcids, we had 13 Rhinos, 1 Marbled Murrelet, 520 Common Murres, and 5 Ancient Murrelets. We had 91 Red-throated, 271 Pacifics, and 84 Common Loons. Northern Fulmar was our only tubenose today. Highlights: a Black-legged Kittiwake following a fishing boat on its way in, and 2 Red-necked Grebes that flew out of the bay together and quite close. There really were not many birds today! During the last hour of the count, we had only two Heermann's Gulls--usually, it's at least a couple hundred!

-Alison Vilag

eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/tripreport/433059

November 14

Weather: The early morning hours were foggy and thick with salt spray because of the high tide and storm-spawned swells; we could barely see to the buoy for several hours. Visibility improved by afternoon, however, and was so good at sunset that I could briefly see an albatross arcing out at the limits of where my scope reaches. It was calm at Pt. Pinos all day, sunny in the afternoon, and the swell was monumental, the sort that gives you sea legs on land if you look at it in the spotting scope for too long. At the outer buoy, winds were light and variable all morning, staying west at about 8 knots from 1400-sunset. Pressure rose from 29.88 at dawn to 29.95 at sunset.

Birds: It was quite quiet at the count today, with the highlight being an evening Black-legged Kittiwake. Often, our calm-day kittiwakes cruise by during the last couple hours of the count...

The Surf Scoter flight is greatly diminished from the last two days: just 810, today, with most movement in the morning. The loon flight is picking up, subtly: we had 203 Red-throats, 338 Pacifics, and 97 Commons--a good daily count for this latter species. Loon movement was strongest from Loon Hour (0700)-1000 today.

Alcids were very sparse today! Just 16 Rhinos, 1 Cassin's, 2 Pigeon Guillemots, 50 Common Murres, and 8 Ancient Murrelets.

Tubenose diversity was low: that sunset albatross sp., 19 Sooty Shearwaters, and 173 Northern Fulmars (the highest horizon-horizon count for the fulmars was 59).

A Pomarine Jaeger and a Red-necked Grebe were part of our less-common seabird contingent, and on the landbird front, we had a flock of 109 Band-tailed Pigeons milling around high above the Point during the morning.

For the last two days, there has been a marked increase in outbound Brown Pelicans, and yesterday evening, very high flocks of Heermann's Gulls were also flying out of the bay, which makes me wonder if they, too, are migrating.

-Alison Vilag

eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/tripreport/432605

2025 Pt. Pinos Seawatch - 13 Nov

Weather: Today was the wettest I've ever had at Pt. Pinos. It rained from the time I arrived right up into the last hour of the count, when a little sliver of sunset appeared right in time for our last big scoter flocks of the day to look gorgeous against. The wind at Pt. Pinos felt far less than what was predicted--there was about twenty minutes of gusting sideways rain--but I expected about six hours of that. I am very glad those expectations were not met... Visibility was quite poor all day; at best, we couldn't see much past the red buoy; at worst, the red buoy was barely visible. At dawn, the outer buoy was registering 27-knot wind from the southeast. It dropped and switched to 8 knots SSW at 1300. Pressure at dawn was 29.80, rising somewhat to 29.85 at sunset.

Birds: Today's storm to storm-petrel ratio was weighted more towards storm than it was towards storm-petrel. We did have at least two Ashies though, and any day with a storm-petrel in it is a good day in by book.

Other reasons why it was a good day: We had 3586 Surf Scoters (and 1 White-winged and 2 Black Scoters)! We had a late Red-necked Phalarope! We had 2 Short-tailed Shearwaters and 20 Ancient Murrelets! Even with the dreary weather, so many friends swung to bring sustenance in the form of snacks, hot drinks, and companionship! I got to see two humpbacks double-breach! And there were quite a few rain beetles (genus Pleocoma) flying around. If you're not familiar with rain beetles, I wasn't either, so here is some of what I learned: rain beetles are ONLY found in western North America. They spend most of their lives as larvae, underground. Fall and winter rain events elicit emergence: the females, flightless, stay in a burrow and release pheremones to attract the short-lived males, who fly around low to the ground searching for a mate. Insect lives are pretty wild, right?!

Male rain beetles were buzzing around the point searching for females in their burrows.

In addition to the highlights above, regarding alcids, we had 33 Rhinos, 1 Cassin's, and 526 Common Murres. For loons, 57 Red-throats, 44 Pacifics, and 7 Commons. We had 64 Northern Fulmars, 5 Pink-footed Shearwaters, and 4 Sooty Shearwaters. We had 1 Parasitic and 7 Pomarine Jaegers.

I think tomorrow morning, if it's not foggy, might bring a good flight--loons were moving a little bit in the final hour, of the count, winds tomorrow will be light, and it seems like birds are eager to move...

-Alison Vilag

eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/tripreport/432260