Seawatch opening day!

Since it was Saturday, many of Monterey's finest seawatch supporters were able to swing by, and the whole day felt like a homecoming: for me, and for this window of fall migration. What a happy, eager gathering of birders. Thank you for having me once again.

Weather: At Pt. Pinos, winds were light at dawn, picking up a little from the NNW during late morning and early afternoon. Dense fog moved in and out for the entire morning, and came back briefly in the afternoon--the buoy was not visible for roughly a quarter of the morning. Pressure rose from 30.10 at dawn to 30.16 at 1000, falling gradually to 30.05 at dusk. Winds at the outer buoy were W at 10 knots at dawn, building to W at 21 knots by 1600, dropping to 14 knots at dusk.

Birds: SURF SCOTERS were moving in good numbers today: we had 1442, with the flight evenly distributed across the day till 1500 when it began to drop off. We also had 2 WHITE-WINGED and 3 BLACK SCOTERS--all these, save one Black Scoter by itself, were mixed with Surf flocks. This is the first opening day of my four (!) seasons that's brought a thousand+ scoter day; curious how many went by in October, as during the afternoon of October 28 I tallied 3300 in just a couple hours... The only other waterfowl was a single BRANT, ironically smack dab in the middle of a flock of Brandt's Cormorants--Brant with the Brandt's...

On the alcid front, we had 433 COMMON MURRES, evenly distributed throughout the day. We also had 10 RHINOCEROS AUKLETS, 1 ANCIENT MURRELET, and a MARBLED MURRELET that was just the adrenaline jolt we needed to hone our focus for the count's final hours.

On the basis of numbers, it was a quiet tubenose day: 16 NORTHERN FULMAR, 1 SOOTY SHEARWATER, 1 SHORT-TAILED SHEARWATER. And! Just as the fog lifted (and after we'd spent a couple hours enduring the fog on the hopes that something really cool would be nearshore when/if it did), Kaiting nonchalantly announced a STORM-PETREL at kelpline distance. It was an Ashy!

We had 55 RED-THROATED LOONS, 99 PACIFICS, and 26 COMMON LOONS--all numbers consistent with the last four opening days of Seawatch.

The other obvious highlight was not one but TWO SOUTH POLAR SKUA sightings within a half-hour of each other. These were both birds flying out of the bay and I believe they were two individuals. One was essentially over land, to the delight of all present. Per eBird, there are <5 records for this species in Monterey County during November, and this is the first official Seawatch record. So cool! There seem to be a lot of PARASITIC JAEGERS lingering in the bay; we had 7 today; perhaps this is connected to the numerous ELEGANT TERNS (161) still around. 332 BONAPARTE'S GULLS were wonderful too.

Bird-wise, it was absolutely the best opening day of Seawatch I've had. But it wasn't just the birds that made it that way. Since it was Saturday, many of Monterey's finest seawatch supporters were able to swing by, and the whole day felt like a homecoming: for me, and for this window of fall migration. What a happy, eager gathering of birders. Thank you for having me once again.

Alison Vilag

eBird Checklist - https://ebird.org/tripreport/428677