Seawatch Report - Nov 12

This was our first (combined) 1000+ loon flight of this count season. It's pretty exciting to realize that this is just the start, and that a week or so from now, we should be watching 1000+ loon HOURS in the early mornings at Seawatch. Most of the loon traffic today was occurring on the "high line"--flying out of the bay past Pt. Pinos at a high altitude, rather than cutting across west of the Point.

Red-throated Loons were the most numerous (total=312) today. The biggest flight was from sunrise-0900, the peak hour 0700 (312). We also had 445 Pacific Loons today, with the peak hour being 0700 (250). Common Loons (13) were, as is typical, the least common at the Seawatch today.

The Surf Scoter flight remains a trickle, with the daily total being just 127. I'm confident, however, that we've got some big flights of this species waiting for us as the season progresses. 14 Brant and 14 Mallards were the only other migratory waterfowl we saw today.

We had some busy hours of alcid movement at the count today, tallying 169 Rhinoceros Auklets and 1958 Common Murres. Peak movement occurred from sunrise-0800, with another little pop in late morning-noon. The biggest murre hour today was 0700. (total: 780).

Tubenoses also picked up a bit today: I saw our first-of-season Short-tailed Shearwater, and also had 7 Pink-foots, 2 Black-vents, a Sooty, and 38 Northern Fulmars.

The bay is still full of Bonaparte's Gulls. Every day, I make a point of dedicating a long, full scope sweep to counting (individually and by 10s when necessary) the flocks. Today, that scan divulged 1642 Bonaparte's, and a lot of the ones close enough to see were 1st-cycle. The age composition seems to vary from day to day with these birds, which I find interesting. Elegant Terns (daily total: 33) are still fairly numerous, which has been a treat for me this season. My prior two years they'd mostly gone by the time the count started, but it seems like the anchovies have kept them around this time. We also had 4 Pomarine Jaegers today.

Weather at the outer buoy was overnight NNE winds 4-6 kt which built to 6-8 kt in the morning. Around noon the winds switched to west, 6-8 kt. At the Point, the wind was light east to light NW in the afternoon, topping out around 4 kt. We also had an hour of dense fog during the afternoon.

See the full checklist here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/292291

 -Alison Vilag