Seawatch Report - Nov 3, 2026

Weather: Today was a south wind day, and even though northwest winds are our favorite here, south winds seem to spawn Seawatch boobies. At the outer buoy at sunrise the wind was blowing south ~12 knots. It built to ~20 knots at 10:30, then went SW at 1PM and stayed around 12 knots for the rest of the day. Pressure dropped from 30.04 at sunrise to 30.00 at the count's end. Visibility was fair, swell was moderate, and there was a brief rain squall in the early afternoon. Monterey Bay is 67.5 degrees, we saw flying fish again, and there is an olive ridley sea turtle in the harbor; moribund murres on the beach below seawatch.

As we hoped, the south winds did, indeed, deliver a booby - a Cocos that flew into the bay right after the rain squall had passed in early afternoon.

Today's scoter movement was diminished from the count's last two days - understandable, as it was not a good day to fly south. We had just 1240, with the biggest pushes in the early morning hours before the wind picked up. With the Surf Scoters, we had 3 Northern Pintail, 2 White-winged Scoters, and 2 Black Scoters. We also had our first-of-season Brant (just one), and Red-necked Grebes today.

Alcid presence continues to be minimal: 2 Rhinoceros Auklets, 13 Cassin's Auklets, 2 Marbled Murrelets, 28 Common Murres.

Royal Terns continue to be prominent - 6 today, along with 20 Elegant Terns and 1 Parasitic Jaeger. Loons haven't really begun to move, although we did have our first "flock" of Pacifics today - 8. Our definition of "loon flock" will soon change, when 8 becomes "a couple" and 80 becomes a flock. We look forward to this. 12 Red-throats, 27 Pacifics, and 16 Common Loons in total today.

Black-vent presence increased today; we had 584 (200+ in the 6AM-7AM and 7AM-8AM periods, as well as the 3PM-4PM period), all flying out of the bay. 4 Northern Fulmars, too.

On the landbird front, the Tropical Kingbird watched the sunrise with us from its favorite Foghorn Lot sign again, and I picked up a juvenile Northern Harrier high and distant to the south of the point flying north over the ocean. Any day I see a harrier confidently crossing big water is a good day; the Cocos Booby made it an even better day.

-Alison Vilag

See the full trip report here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/591691