Seawatch Report - Dec 6

Ancient murrelets

A dense Ancient Murrelet flight and close, repeat appearances by Black-footed Albatross stole the Seawatch show today: we had 357 Ancients (steady movement through noon!) and saw albatross during 6 hours of today's count; the max visible at any one time was three (!), which was fantastic--especially given the lack of wind: it was <5 knots all day at Pt. Pinos... I think my favorite seawatch vignette today was a Black-footed Albatross in front of a humpback whale background and a cameo foursome of flyby Ancients. I will never not abandon everything to awe over at least a few albatross arcs!

Otherwise, it was fairly quiet: 163 Surf Scoters; 1962 Common Murres and 94 Rhinoceros Auklets; 235 Red-throated and 2313 Pacific Loons.

The tubenose showing was a little more diverse today. In addition to the albatross, we had 62 Northern Fulmars, 12 Pink-footed Shearwaters, 1 Sooty Shearwater, and 2 Short-tailed Shearwaters.

A Black-legged Kittiwake and 2 Marbled Murrelets were also fun flybys at today's Seawatch.

See the full checklist here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/298621

-Alison Vilag