The three standout features of today's count: 1. We saw species of birds that nest in Alaska (Pacific Loon), Hawaii (Black-footed Albatross), Chile (Pink-footed Shearwater), New Zealand (Sooty Shearwater), and Antarctica (Wilson's Storm-Petrel). All today. All in Monterey Bay. 2. Going into the day, our highest hourly loon count of the season was 600-something. I had been hoping for a nice warm-up period of gradually larger flights leading into our BIG loon flights, but no such luxury was granted--our highest hourly loon count today was more than 11,500. 3. We used a grand total of three different vehicles for windbreaks today, which might be a record for me at the Seawatch.
Driving over to the count predawn, it was raining and already blowing from the northwest--a sure sign of a good day at Pinos. The rain cleared out before the count started, but the wind persisted and built: by the count's end, it was blowing 15 knots at Pt. Pinos.
Pacific Loon flocks began appearing essentially when it became light enough to pick them out. First, the highline was the most heavily traveled, but I took quick peeks at the far outer flightline, suspecting that it would eventually become a river of (very distant) loon flocks. It did. Kai and Catherine, providentially, were out there with me and I had them focus on what was passing the Point while I stuck my head into my scope on the bay-cutting line. My face hardly left my scope for the next two hours: during that period, we tallied over 7,000 Pacific Loons the first hour, and over 11,638 Pacifics the second (0700) hour. Loon totals for the day were 20,155 Pacifics and 1166 Red-throats, with 0600, 0700, and 0800 all being thousand+ loon hours.
Surf Scoters pushed hard today too, with the 4255 tallied marking (so far) the daily peak of the season. The peak hour, 1086, was the 0700-0800 hour, and the flight was heaviest from 0600-1000.
It was a big alcid day too. We hit our peak daily murre count (5377) of the season so far; the peak hour was 1368 at 1100; there probably was not any time over the entire course of the day when, looking out over the water, you couldn't see a multitude of murres blasting west.
We also had 3 Pigeon Guillemots and 50 Ancient Murrelets.
We hope for good tubenose diversity and numbers on conditions like these, and we were not disappointed. The star of this show today was the WILSON'S STORM-PETREL that Brian spotted--a first record not only for the Seawatch, but, per eBird, also for Pt. Pinos. We also had 2 Leach's Storm-Petrels, a Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel, 2 Black-footed Albatrosses, and good numbers of Pink-footed Shearwater (67), Sooty Shearwater (57), and Short-tailed Shearwater (11). A multitude of Northern Fulmars were in the bay as well: we tallied 468 today, with the peak hourly count being 140 (at 1500).
Today was one of those days you anticipate when starting a Seawatch season at Pinos. Overwhelming, grueling, absolutely beautiful in the way that big scoter and loon flights are--and shared with people who love seawatching; love migration; love letting their minds and dreams go out to sea in the way that comes from peering through a spotting scope and sorting through the swells.
See the full checklist here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/293059
- Alison Vilag
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