November 21

Weather: Seawatch today was sunny, with light winds from the E during the morning that switched to light W in the afternoon. Visibility was quite good all day, and the swell was substantial. At the outer buoy, winds were NNW at 6 knots at dawn. They switched to ENE at 15.5 knots by 0800, then switched back to NNW at 1200, then WSW at 1500. Pressure rose from 29.98 at dawn to 30.05 at sunset.

Birds: It was a pretty quiet day, though we did have 2555 Pacific Loons (and a nice afternoon push, 920 during the 1200-1300 hour). We also had 122 Red-throated Loons and 8 Common Loons. Flocks of Band-tailed Pigeons were streaming out high over the bay in the morning; we tallied 515. Surf Scoters are really seeming to taper--just 279 today, and no flocks >25ish individuals.

For alcids, we had 9 Rhinoceros Auklets, 1 Pigeon Guillemot, 487 Common Murres, and 12 Ancient Murrelets. 6 Black-legged Kittiwakes and a Pink-footed Shearwater were nice, and the season's first Snow Goose briefly gave me a panic: it was alone, quite distant, and was doing weird things like flying low and circling--doing things like boobies do... Brant aside, we haven't had geese this year--no Cackler/Canada/Snow/White-front amalgamation on Crespi, and no Cackler flight, though I did have a small distant flock of Cackling/Canada today during the same hour I had the Snow Goose.

The unrivaled highlight of today was the killer whale pod that did a long, sedate drive-by just beyond the kelpline this morning. My previous experience with killer whales at Seawatch is having a distant dorsal randomly pop into my field of view, which is awesome in its own way, but what a treat to see the whales up close! Many thanks to Kai (and Dane) for letting me know to be on the lookout. A season treat, for sure.

-Alison Vilag

eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/tripreport/434630