November 19

Weather: It was a calm, gray day at Seawatch, with minimal swell and decent visibility for most of the count. At the outer buoy, the wind was NE 6 knots at dawn, switching to S 4 knots at 1100, then SW 6 knots by the count's end. Pressure at sunrise was 30.05; it rose to 30.10 at 1000 and then fell to 30.06 at sunset.

It was a really quiet bird day! We had just 816 Surf Scoters (plus 2 White-wings and a Black). For alcids, just 8 Rhinoceros Auklets, 1 Cassin's Auklet, 869 Common Murres, and 1 Ancient Murrelet. The loon flight was also not really flowing today: 139 Red-throats, 108 Pacs, 5 Common Loons. Interestingly, we did see a few flocks (each a few dozen) of RTLO flying into the bay in mid-morning. This is not something we see often during Seawatch, and they were not counted.

The kittiwake show continued, though it was diminished from yesterday's--we had 5 today. Also of note were 2 Common Ravens that perched for a couple minutes on a bench to the east of Seawatch, looking out at the bay like everyone else who sits there...

I'm looking forward to what tomorrow (Thursday's) weather shift brings. These quiet days were a nice reset from Monday's madness, but I'm ready for the next big flight...

-Alison Vilag

eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/tripreport/434079