Seawatch Report - Nov 23

Another fun day out at the Seawatch. The morning started with somewhat limited (but not terrible) visibility. The alcid flight was benevolent enough to wait until there were a few good sets of eyes at the count, and the bulk of the loon flight was at a low enough altitude that our attention was not horribly divided across the field of view.

Today's edition of the alcid flight was weighted more with murres (daily tally 4147) than it was with Rhinos (daily tally 1010), and the flight was heaviest in the sunrise-0900 window, with the 0700 hour bringing us the most murres (1535) and Rhinos (747). It was another good day to see Ancient Murrelets at the count (73!), and 2 Pigeon Guillemots, a Marbled Murrelet, and our second Tufted Puffin of the season added to the fun.

Adding to the early morning excitement was our season's second Cocos Booby, which was flying out of the bay low and moving in and out of the fogline, which made it difficult to stay with. Then, a Pomarine Jaeger that still had its spooners came by at close range, which was fun. Our favorite bird of the mid-morning was another Leach's Storm-Petrel that we were able to watch for quite some time as it worked back and forth over the swells and troughs...I'm really enjoying the run of storm-petrels we've had since November 15 (1 Wilson's, 2 Fork-tails, and 4 Leach's!).

We had a few more tubenoses today than we've been getting: 33 Northern Fulmars, 9 Pink-footed Shearwaters, 11 Sooty Shearwaters, and 4 Short-tailed Shearwaters...

Loon flight was fairly busy this morning. 483 Red-throats and 5337 Pacific Loons passed by over the course of the day. The bulk of the Pacific flight was low over the water and in front of the count (not cutting the bay). Peak hourly tally was 1642 (0700), and the flight was around >800/hr from 0700-noon.

See the full checklist here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/295198

- Alison Vilag