`ONE OF THE GREATEST AVIAN CROSSROADS IN THE WORLD'
From dawn to dusk an Audubon team counts passing birds
Brian Sullivan showed up at Pacific Grove's Point Pinos on a recent Friday morning with his spotting scope, long-range binoculars and a telephoto camera. There he meets a small team for the annual Point Pinos Seawatch program where they take a census on the birds that travel through the area.
It's something he has done every year around this time since 2015.
“This is one of the greatest avian crossroads in the world,” said Sullivan, who is a project leader at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology based in Carmel Valley and a pioneer of the Seawatch program.
With a plentiful food supply, Monterey Bay is a much-coveted area for both local and migratory birds. Birds like the sooty shearwaters spend time breeding in New Zealand before flying to Monterey Bay to feed their chicks. Bells that breed in the Sea of Cortez like to spend their winter here too for the same reason.
“Point Pinos has always lent itself to observing astonishing rarities,” said Blake Matheson, the president of the Monterey Audubon Society, the volunteer organization that funds the annual Point Pinos Seawatch project. The society is dedicated to conserving birds in the Monterey Bay region. The data they collect from this program will inform them about the trends of bird migrations to the area.
One such rarity was the blackfooted albatross. These pelagic tubenoses breed in Hawaii and are often sighted by visitors at sea onboard a whale-watching boat. But at Point Pinos, birders could enjoy the rare spectacle on land without worrying about getting seasick.
From the beginning of November until mid-December, the team from Audubon and several volunteers meet at Point Pinos from dawn to dusk to count birds that transit through the area. With its unique crescentshaped geography, Point Pinos is an exceptional viewing platform to catch sight of these seabirds.
Alison Vilag, a professional bird counter hired by the Monterey Audubon Society, fixed her eye on the spotting scope during a recent seawatch. As a professional bird counter, Vilag has spent much of her time identifying birds. When she is on duty, she stands at the Point Pinos sidewalk, occasionally gazing toward the ocean, and scanning for birds that pass.
Each bird has its designated click counter hooked onto her khaki vest. When they fly by her field of view, she flicks the clicker. She can do this for hours, at times keeping track of 10 to 12 clickers simultaneously she says.
At the end of the day, bird enthusiasts can follow the tally, which she posts onto an openaccess online database, called eBird.
“It is pretty overwhelming at Pinos, just because the volume of birds that can come by here is incredible. And they come from all directions,” she said.
Most seabirds don't fly inland, so it is difficult to spot them from the shore. But in certain weather conditions, when the winds are blowing onshore, these migratory birds are pushed closer to the shore before they make a steep pivot out of the mouth of the Bay.
“That's when this place turns magic,” said Sullivan. He has
spotted as many as 100,000 Pacific loons in just one day. “It is a spectacle of nature.”
Apart from migratory birds, local birds like cormorants, seagulls and pelicans also congregate here.
Vilag, who has been birdcounting since 2019, keeps records of all kinds of species that arrive at Monterey Bay. Prior to joining Monterey Audubon Society, she was a bird-counter at the Great Lakes in Michigan.
Among many things that help Vilag distinguish between distant birds are their wing beats and flying formation. The scoters, for example, tend to fly in a v-shape formation, Vilag said.
“When the birds get closer, I will start looking at different structural things, like whether their wings are long and pointed, or if they are short and rounded,” she said.
Every day, volunteers can sign up to accompany Vilag while engaging with passersby who are interested in the project.
“Often people walk up and the first question they have is: `Are you studying whales?' or `Are you looking at sea otters?'” said Amanda Preece, an environmental advocate, and staff member at The Monterey Audubon Society. Preece trains volunteers to become seawatch docents.
The Pacific loons and surf scoters that travel from the Arctic tundra are the two birds that consistently migrate to Monterey Bay. By counting them, the team hopes to find meaningful trends or patterns
about the birds and their ecosystem that can be useful for research and conservation purposes.
“We think of these birds as the visible heartbeat of Monterey Bay. They give us a good indicator of the health of the bay,” said Sullivan.
The Point Pinos Seawatch is the only landbased census program on the West Coast.
“There's a lot of research that could be done with this data, especially if we start to pair them with climate data and data on fisheries to tease out what is actually happening (in the Monterey Bay),” said Sullivan.
For centuries, birdwatchers have come together to watch and identify various species. But to track the trend of their migration requires a consistent
and systematic counting.
“If you are a birder and you're paying attention, there is not an iota of doubt that in the past couple of decades, things are radically changing,” said
Matheson.
In recent years, he has noticed a decline in the Pacific loons and an increasing number of birds coming from Mexico and Central America, such as the Neotropic cormorants and red-footed boobies. Prior to 2010, these two birds were rarely sighted in Monterey Bay. But the warming seas seemed to have moved their food supply northward, Matheson said.
Matheson believes their data will have important implications for future fisheries and urban development decisions that could affect the overall ecosystem. “Ultimately, we want to have a positive impact on policies,” Matheson said.
With this goal in mind, the team will continue their count for the next few weeks, with a small tip for visitors who are interested in sharing the experience: “A strong cold front with rain, and preferably northwest winds that are 20 to 30 knots,” said Sullivan, “those are the days to come out here and you won't be disappointed.”