Tuesday November 4

Weather: There is currently a BIG weather system in the north Pacific rotating counter-clockwise: strong south winds in far north CA up to Gulf of Alaska. I suspect this system is at least a reason for why Seawatch was so slow today. There was a lot of salt in the air at Seawatch today, but that aside, visibility was good--finally, not foggy. It was partly cloudy and fairly calm this morning, with winds kicking up from the south this afternoon. Swell was pretty small. At the outer buoy, winds at dawn were ~10 kt from the NE, dropping and switching to SE at 0900. By the count's end they'd built back up to ~10 kt SSE; apparently there is a gale warning from 2100-1500 tomorrow. Pressure at dawn was 30.08 and stayed fairly stable all day, dropping around sunset to 30.03

Birds: It would not surprise me if today was one of the quietest days of the season. We had just 153 Surf Scoters, 60 Red-throated Loons, 52 Pacific Loons, and 5 Common Loons. Alcid diversity was nice--we had single Cassin's Auklets, Marbled Murrelets, and Pigeon Guillemots--but murre movement was very minimal (265 for the day). We had just 13 Northern Fulmars and 2 Sooty Shearwaters for tubenoses, and also just one jaeger today, a Parasitic. The first non-Audubon's warbler of the season, a Townsend's, was a nice afternoon flyover, and while we didn't have a huge amount of Red Phalaropes today, it was fun when little rafts of them mysteriously appeared in our fields of view this afternoon. While not Pt. Pinos proper, I did have 16 Scaly-breasted Munias in the reeds at Crespi Pond today, which is only the second time I've detected this species near Seawatch. They definitely threw my Michigan ears, currently recalibrating, for a loop...

I think we all are curious what tomorrow will bring: changes in weather--even if the change is not that revered northwest gale--always bring changes in birds to the Seawatch, and, rain or shine, we'll be out there to see what might blow in.

-Alison Vilag

eBird Checklist: https://ebird.org/tripreport/429542