December 1

Weather: Dawn started with fog AND a stiff northeast wind - two conditions that don't usually cohabitate at Pt. Pinos. After a few hours the fog burned off and the wind dropped, but if you look at our loon numbers for the day, it's pretty evident that the damage was done... fog aside, morning visibility was poor: there has been more distortion on the "outer line" area of the horizon than I remember there being in my previous seasons. Is it related to the ongoing high pressure, which has made California news for blocking the expected winter storms? The temperature? Swell was moderate, the afternoon was sunny, and afternoon visibility was good. At the outer buoy, the wind at dawn was 15.5 knots from the NE. It built to 19.4 knots NE (1000), dropped to 4 knots NNE (1500), and switched to NW at sunset. Pressure at dawn was 30.06; it rose to 30.11 during mid-morning but was back down to 30.06 at sunset.

Birds: In my experience, persistent high pressure does not drive big migration events. We did have a higher volume of Surf Scoters today (545), but all other fronts were very quiet: 306 Common Murres and 9 Rhinoceros Auklets; 47 Red-throated and 391 Pacific Loons. We had a late Elegant Tern, and, a couple times in late morning, we caught glimpses of a Black-footed Albatross cartwheeling across the horizon! We did not see any Black-vented Shearwaters today, but they were pretty consistent on the prior two days, and I bet they'll continue to be somewhat regular.

The extended forecast model I like to look at, Tropical Tidbits, is currently showing the high pressure to outlast the 2025 Seawatch season. Will the Pacific Loon flight's biggest push be post-Seawatch? I sure hope not!

-Alison Vilag

eBird Checklist:https://ebird.org/tripreport/438013