2025 Pt. Pinos Seawatch - 18 Nov

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