Seawatch Report - Nov 9, 2026

Weather: At the outer buoy at sunrise the wind was blowing from the NNW at around 12 knots; by 12:30 it had built to 15.5 knots, and at 2PM it was 21.5 knots, still NNW. This has been a consistent pattern so far this Seawatch, and midafternoon-sunset has consistently been a good time to see scoters, loons, Black-vented Shearwaters, jaegers - and surprises, like Sabine's Gull and Cocos Booby. The pressure at sunrise was 30.07, and it rose to 30.11 at 11AM; by sunset it was back down to 30.06. The swell continues to be immense; high tide is a little terrifying - surf hit the Seawatch bench hard (fortunately, no one was sitting there) and I was very happy I'd already moved operations to the truck bed for the day. Salt spray was sheeting past Seawatch all day, it was partly cloudy, and the water was 68 degrees.

A couple days ago, I was walking to the Crespi Pond restroom and it occurred to me that, in all the times I've done that the last 5 years, no crazy bird has ever gone by the Seawatch in my absence. I really should have never thought that thought. This afternoon, returning to Seawatch from Crespi, the first thing I noticed back in the office was the funny look Bill had on his face.

"What'd you have?!"

"103 Black-vents."

"And?"

"A few loons."

"And?"

"A Red Crossbill." But Bill still had that look on his face.

"Okay AND?!"

"A Cocos Booby!"

If not for last week's Cocos Booby that Kai and I saw, I would have been very sad (but of course, still very happy for Bill!). But it's crazy how much can bomb past the Seawatch in a 5-minute bathroom break!

Otherwise, we had:

-10 Brant

-6 Cackling Geese

-2 Greater Scaup (lone birds with Surf Scoter flocks)

-477 Surf Scoters (with a sunset push)

-1 White-winged Scoter (with a Surf Scoter flock)

-Another good Pom show, 6 today, mostly late afternoon

-7 Rhinoceros Auklets, 72 Cassin's Auklets (all but 5 came by from 2-4PM), 3 Marbled Murrelets (all afternoon and close kelpline flybys!), 2 Pigeon Guillemots, and 55 Common Murres

-Our first-of-season Thayer's Gull, 113 Elegant Terns, and 4 Royal Terns

-1 Red-necked Grebe

-48 Red-throated Loons, 273 Pacifics (we were just a few shy of our first triple-digit loon hour, which is longer in coming this year than it has been my previous seasons), and 18 Common Loons

-2 Northern Fulmars and 811 Black-vented Shearwaters

-1 Cocos Booby, an adult female, which flew out of the bay at 2PM

Noteworthy landbirds were:

-A Common Raven that did a loop around the point in the morning

-Bill's Red Crossbill

-A post-sunset Mourning Dove that added a little adrenaline rush to our nighthawk vigil before we identified it as a Mourning Dove - a species that's actually quite uncommon at Pt. Pinos. (Some context for nighthawk vigils: In 2022 at dusk on November 8, we photographed a Lesser Nighthawk at Pt. Pinos. Last night at--Nov 8--at Salinas NWR, a Lesser Nighthawk was photographed at dusk. The nighthawk vigils shall continue.

-Alison Vilag

See the full trip report here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/593675