November 28

Weather: At dawn, the wind had a fair amount of east in it, but it was calmer than it's been for the last three mornings. The wind dropped off pretty quickly, and we started feeling it on the west side of our faces by early afternoon. By evening winds were light, but west. Swell started out minimal but built over the course of the day; visibility was good until the winds switched to west and then it got a little hazy. At the outer buoy, the wind at dawn was NNE at ~8 knots. It switched to W at 1200, building to 17.5 knots W at sunset. Pressure at sunrise was 30.10; by sunset it had fallen to 30.03

Birds: We expected a nice loon flight this morning, and we got one! 5175 Pacific Loons passed during the 0700-0800 Loon Hour and were evenly distributed between the mid-outer line and the flightline that goes directly past Pt. Pinos. As is often the case when winds shift west at Pinos, the loon flight continued until about 1500; tallies at day's end were 9758 Pacifics and 360 Red-throats.

The alcid flight was fun today - we had 1954 Common Murres (peak hour 444, Loon Hour); 689 Rhinoceros Auklets (peak was 266 during the count's last hour), and had 38 Ancient Murrelets and 2 Cassin's Auklets. We got word that a whalewatching boat had found a Tufted Puffin not far from Seawatch this afternoon, and though we didn't see it fly past Seawatch, we had fun looking for it. Maybe tomorrow...

Tubenoses diversified a bit today: a close Black-vented Shearwater came by this afternoon - the season's first. This species was numerous at Seawatch in 2022 and 2023 and scarce last year. We had a Sooty Shearwater near sunset, and plenty of Northern Fulmars.

3 Pomarine Jaegers and a Black-legged Kittiwake were fun, as were high flocks of Band-tailed Pigeons that looked like glitter in the early morning sun. The scoter flight is still quite dry: 103 was all we counted today.

Tomorrow's forecast, coupled with the persistent loon flight, the final-hour push of Rhinoceros Auklets, and a sunset Sooty Shearwater make me hopeful for tomorrow (Saturday) morning. I guess we'll find out!

-Alison Vilag

eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/tripreport/436730