Seawatch Report - Nov 6, 2026

The morning broke with a little wind but a big swell. At times, only the tip of the Pt Pinos Buoy was visible above the swell. Consequently, many of the smaller birds stayed close to the water, making them hard to see. Views of the low-flying birds were mainly quick glimpses as the birds flew over a wave before dipping down behind a trough.

Mark Kudrav spotted a pod of Risso’s Dolphins, and Catherine was able to see a Mako Shark jumping out of the water. On the bird front, Black-vented Shearwaters continued their strong showing with 2100 individually clicked throughout the day. A single Short-tailed shearwater continued a trend of 1-2 per day over the last week. Pacific Loon numbers are starting to build. A few flocks of high single digits were seen throughout the day. A Black-legged Kittiwake flying out of the bay was a nice surprise. Other less common birds included a single Bufflehead and six Green-winged Teal.

By mid-day, the large swell continued, but without a white-cap in sight, although they would appear by the end of the day. At times, the ocean seemed eerily empty. In many years, we’d be using clickers to keep track of Common Murres. But not this year. Today we saw less than 10 per hour. Black-vented shearwaters remained strong throughout the afternoon, but no other shearwater species made an appearance.

There were a few big Surf Scoter flocks flying out of the bay on their way south, one of them escorted by a male Black Scoter. A flock of four Brant flew into the Bay. Returning winter gulls were represented by Short-billed, Glaucous-winged, and good numbers of California Gulls. A couple of close Marbled Murrelets flew quickly out of the bay. The influx of Royal Terns continued. At one point a pair of them flew by, quite close to a California Gull. It was a great ID clue as the terns were nearly as big as the gull, which their flight style recalled as well.

One of our service learners, CSUMB student Erin, joined us for a few hours in the afternoon. Between sessions of reaching out to dog walkers and wave watchers to explain what we’re doing, she started getting some practice spotting scoter flocks and picking up loons and shearwaters as they skimmed the water and approached First Rock. Before long she was seeing the long, white necks of the Red-throated Loons in contrast to the squattier nature of the Pacific Loons, and picking them out along with us. Later in the afternoon, just before the end of her shift, she had her notebook out, drawing some sketches. On those pages, I saw First Rock, Triangle Rock, and a few of the other landmarks she’d learned. Like the joy in witnessing the visible migration of seabirds passing The Point, it is heartwarming and deeply reassuring to witness this passing of joy and appreciation of the natural world from one generation to the next. Thank you Erin, for your enthusiasm and your contributions to our efforts.

Thanks to all of those who helped out today, trying to fill the shoes of Alison on her day off: Paul Fenwick, Mark Kudrav, Catherine Webb, Alexander Clementson, Kyan Russell, Karen Kreiger, John Tsortos, Laurie Adams, and Kaiting Huang.

-Fred Hochstaedter

See the full trip report here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/592924