Short-eared Owls! - Nov 16

Another fun day at the Seawatch, highlighted by: not one but TWO Short-eared Owls that came by at hours when they could be appreciated by Seawatch regulars; a very confiding and close Leach's Storm-Petrel; some less-common waterfowl (a Redhead, 2 Black Scoters, 7 Common Mergansers); 6 Black-legged Kittiwakes; 3 Marbled Murrelets and 45 Ancient Murrelets; a Northern Harrier; a distant flock of Snow/Ross's Geese flying high towards the northeast. (The geese had been seen by Bill Hubick over El Carmelo cemetery just prior to detecting them at the Seawatch!)

I did not expect the loon flight to be so diminished from the 20,000+ flight yesterday, but, I'll be honest: it was nice to start the morning in a calmer fashion. We tallied 1051 Pacifics, 556 Red-throats, and 42 Commons; sunrise hour was the busiest for Red-throated (262) and the following hour the busiest for Pacifics (418). The loon flight we observed today was above and in front of us; we were not detecting flocks on the outer line.

We had another nice Surf Scoter flight: 2871, with the first and last hours of the count bringing us over 500 each. During the sunset hour, some of the large flocks were cutting behind us over the golf course, like they do fairly predictably late in the day.

The murre flight this morning was intense: for the first two hours, we had well over 1000, and ended the day with 5279 total; Rhinoceros Auklets were also numerous, 684 for the day; we had 4 Cassin's Auklets as well as the 3 Marbled and 45 Ancients mentioned above.

Tubenose numbers were diminished from yesterday: 11 Pink-foots, 19 Sooties, and the Leach's. Fulmars were plentiful in the morning, with >100 being clicked during each of the first two hours of the count.

The wind was <5 kt from the ENE at the outer buoy this morning, switching to 8-12 kt west in the afternoon, but remaining <5 kt at the Point. Swell was minimal, visibility was fairly good, and it was mostly sunny.

See the full checklist here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/293436

- Alison Vilag