December 2

Weather: At dawn this morning, the wind was still coming out of the east, but not as intensely as it has been for the last week. The wind dropped off in mid-morning, then shifted west in late afternoon. Visibility was good, the swell was large, and it was a clear day. At the outer buoy, winds started at ~12 knots north, went ~10 knots NNE at 0900, switched to W at 1300, and were W ~10 knots at sunset. At dawn, pressure was 30.08, rising to 30.11 at 1000, then falling to 30.02 at the count's end.

Birds: We had the biggest Surf Scoter day I've seen for awhile - 839. For loons, we had 64 Red-throats and 1457 Pacifics (462 of these were during loon hour, and we had a nice midafternoon push, too).

Alcid and tubenose numbers were low, but diversity was good! In addition to the usual suspects within these groups, we had 2 Pigeon Guillemots, 10 Ancient Murrelets, 1 Black-footed Albatross, 1 Sooty Shearwater, and 1 Black-vented Shearwater.

A Black-legged Kittiwake and what was likely 1 Royal Tern (making 3 appearances) were fun, too. East winds dominate our forecast for the next few days; I don't have high expectations for high loon volume or tubenose appearances.

-Alison Vilag

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