First week complete! 2025 Pt. Pinos Seawatch - 8 Nov

Weather: No fog today, which was much appreciated by all who have endured the fair amount of fog we'd had this week... winds weren't great: moderate NNE at the Point for most of the morning, dying off in late afternoon. Swell was moderate, skies were mostly clear, no precipitation. At the outer buoy, winds at dawn were NNE at 8 knots, switching to NNW at 0900. They built to 12 knots W at 1600. Pressure at dawn was 30.00, and it fell slightly to 29.94 at sunset.

Birds: There was nice Surf Scoter movement today: we tallied 1171; the biggest push happened in late afternoon, with our biggest "hour" actually being less than a half-hour: the 1700-last light checklist. We had 253 go by in that short span of time, which has me wondering if there will be a good push Sunday morning, which is my day off. We had a few other ducks mixed in today: 5 Northern Shoveler, 1 Green-winged Teal, 1 Black Scoter, 3 Bufflehead.

There were also some interesting shorebirds around: 4 Wilson's Snipe flew in, seemingly off the ocean, shortly after sunrise, and 3 dowitcher sp. passed by during the afternoon. Red Phalaropes continue to fly out of the bay in good numbers--today we had 181.

We had 5 Parasitic Jaegers and 1 Pomarine today; they're the perfect bird at Seawatch when it's been a long (but a great!) week, the wind is in your face, salt is in eyes and coating lenses, and you need a little pick-me-up. Watching their stealth missions towards unsuspecting Heermann's Gulls and Elegant Terns is always a thrill!

Alcid presence continues to be relatively low. We had 2 Rhinoceros Auklets, 983 Common Murres (mostly dawn-0900), and 4 Ancient Murrelets--another favorite Seawatch bird--today. We all got spoiled by the abundance of ANMU last year and would really love a repeat...

There was consistent movement of Bonaparte's Gulls (253) and Elegant Terns (145) out of the bay today, and we had our first-of-Seawatch season Black-legged Kittiwake.

The loon flight was quite quiet today: 120 Red-throats, 220 Pacifics, and 5 Commons. Most loon movement happened during "loon hour" (0700-0800), and there were some loons and scoters moving along the far outer line.

Our storm-petrel run continues! We had 2 today; the one we identified was a Black Storm-Petrel that flew into the bay around sunset. We also had 29 Northern Fulmars and 10 Sooty Shearwaters.

There was a little American Pipit flight that headed towards Santa Cruz today--we had 49, and probably missed many more.

The last hour and a half of today's count was a perfect way to end my workweek. Elegant Terns, close enough to hear, were streaming towards the sunset; we had a jaeger or two; the Black Storm-Petrel, our fifteenth (!!) of the week, was fantastic, especially since Madison, who had to work during our biggest storm-petrel runs this week, was able to see it. And having big scoter flocks flying out of the bay through the dusk always makes you wonder what the next morning will hold... thank you Seawatch and thank you Monterey Audubon for an absolute banger of a first week back.

-Alison Vilag

eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/tripreport/430877