Date: 11/13/25 7:23 pm From: Pete Sole <pete...> Subject: Re: [MBBIRDS] Seawatch at Pt Pinos
Thanks for sharing this story Fred.
First, kudos to Alison Vilag and the team of counters, and to Katie
Rodriguez for such a nice write up.
Second, imho, bird migration is one of the perhaps unappreciated, but
most incredible wonders of the natural world. The list of mind blowing
things that birds do for migration.... I just can't help but just shake
my head. A few herculean feats in no particular order:
* Bristle-thigh Curlews, staging on the coast of Alaska to fly to
relatively small or tiny islands in the Pacific, non-stop. Oh, and
by the way, the curlews can't swim, the birds go through a "radical"
molt shortly after arriving on their wintering grounds, and
juveniles migrate a month or two later than the adults.
* Ruby-throated Hummingbirds staging on the Yucatan Peninsula in
Mexico, flying across the Gulf of Mexico to land in Florida,
non-stop, of course.
* Blackpoll Warblers staging on the North Eastern US and South-eastern
Canada to fly, in some cases non-stop, over the Western Atlantic to
land in northern South America.
* Some Sooty Shearwaters, flying a figure 8 migration pattern over the
Pacific. Some, when they leave our area, head south for a bit, and
then cross the mid-Pacific at the equator, to land in the islands
just of the coast of New Zealand, not bothering to fly along the
rest of the Pacific coast of the Central and South America.
These are astounding navigational examples, all from the class "aves",
species with a small, marble sized brain.
