December 7

The morning broke cold with a wind blowing from the east. Loon hour delivered with 1819 Pacific Loons and 852 Common Murres in the 7:00am hour. These birds represented the majority of loons and murres for the day, with only 1346 more loons and 414 murres flying past the point throughout the rest of the day. Pacific loons dominated throughout the day, with only 59 Red-throated Loons counted during the day.

Additional morning highlights included a White-winged Scoter joining the first big scoter flock of the day, and a pair of Black Scoters flying together out of the Bay. A Black-legged Kittiwake and a Black-footed Albatross also appeared during the morning. The cold east wind kept up nearly the entire morning, not letting up until the 11:00 am hour.

During the noon hour, the wind died down and the temperatures warmed up, allowing the afternoon crew to enjoy pleasant seawatching conditions. Predictably, loon and migrating pelagic bird abundance dropped off significantly for the afternoon. As the swell decreased, however, conditions for murrelet viewing increased markedly. Fifteen Ancient Murrelets were seen in the 3:00 pm hour, including at least three sitting on the water in nice light just past the giant raft of sea otters, enabling prolonged views and close study. Other afternoon highlights included a couple of close-in jaegers, one a Parasitic, and the other a dark-morph Pomarine.

In a manner similar to last Sunday, a giant gull scrum developed over an apparent school of anchovies rising close to the surface just off the point. We could see the gulls stream in from all directions. California, Glaucous-winged, and Short-billed Gulls were all present in numbers, along with a smattering of American Herring and Iceland. Snowy Egrets, Great Egrets, and a Great Blue Heron waited for the leftovers on the tidepool rocks.

-Fred Hochstaedter

eBird Checklist:https://ebird.org/tripreport/439878