November 11

Weather: It was foggy today, but, contrary to expectation, the fog was not crippling for most of the count. We could see the red buoy (albeit not far beyond it) for most of the day, and we had a really fun, diverse Loon Hour! (Loon Hour is the 0700-0800 hour, named such because when the Pacifics start flying by the tens of thousands an hour, Loon Hour is almost always where it falls.) It was fairly calm at dawn and dusk, but wind at the count was moderate from the SW for most of the day. At the outer buoy it was blowing ENE at 6 knots at dawn, and by 1100 had switched to SE and built to 12 knots, switching to south but generally sustaining speed through dusk. Pressure at was was 30.08; at dusk it had dropped to 30.03.

Birds: We had our biggest (so far) Surf Scoter flight of the season yesterday: 3651! This puts us over the 10,000 threshold for this season. The flight was strongest from dawn through Loon Hour and again from 1400-1700. The fog kept afternoon flocks low, and it was awesome to see triple-digit scoter flocks piling, spilling, shapeshifting out at the fogline. We had 2 White-winged Scoters and a Black Scoter, as well as 71 Brant, which usually appear when it's foggy weather and stormy somewhere offshore.

We had a great murre and Rhinoceros Auklet flight from dawn-loon hour; daily tallies: 1490 Common Murre, 440 Rhinoceros Auklet, 2 Cassin's Auklet, 9 Ancient Murrelet.

Re: loons we had 64 Red-throats, 722 Pacifics (574 during Loon Hour--surely, a thousand-hour is on our near horizons!), and 20 Commons. The flight was low-altitude, and there was some movement on the outer line.

There were wonderful amounts of Northern Fulmars in the bay today; we tallied 146. Also 44 Sooty Shearwaters, 3 Pink-foots--our first in a few days--and a storm-petrel sp. that I think was a Fork-tailed. Many Red Phalaropes continue to raft up in these reaches of Monterey Bay--my conservative estimate of these rafts yesterday was 700 birds.

We had 3 Parasitic and 4 Pomarine Jaegers, a Black-legged Kittiwake, 635 Bonaparte's Gulls, and a marked influx of "different" gulls: all of a sudden Californias are a more prevalent part of the mix, and we are seeing more Glaucous-winged, Thayer's, and Short-billed.

Finally, there was a little Cedar Waxwing movement over the point today--just 32 individuals, but several different small flocks, and this movement took place over a few hours. One of the whalewatching boats saw a Short-eared Owl several miles out in the bay today...hoping we have one (or at least enough visibility to see one at the ranges that we do here haha) before too long.

-Alison Vilag

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