Date: 12/11/25 12:48 pm From: Brian Fitch via groups.io <fogeggs...> Subject: [SFBirds] Sutro Waterfowl
This morning's seawatch was my most productive in a while, as water birds were moving despite the many days in a row of northeasterlies. The flight wasn't numerically large, but was varied and relatively continuous over four hours. Duck flocks all approached low over the sea surface and then moved upwards as they headed into the Golden Gate, while the three goose flocks approached high and each from different areas. The final flock of fifty White-fronteds came from the open sea in the direction of the Farallons, and tried for many minutes to approach the Gate before giving up and angling southeast. Murres were moving constantly in every direction in lines of sixty or less, so I'm only making a rough estimate below. Highlights included:
Greater White-fronted Goose - 20, 75, 50 Snow Goose - 8 with the above flock of 75 Brant - 3 northbound Gadwall - 2 American Wigeon - 4, 4, 10, 5 Northern Shoveler - 12, 7, 8 Northern Pintail - 20, 4, 15, 11, 6 Redhead - 1 F, 1 M Greater Scaup - 8 southbound Bufflehead - 2 over the sea, more on the Baths Clark's Grebe - in flight north Common Murre - 10,000+ Ancient Murrelet - 1 weaving north through crowds of murres - and 1 late Humpback in the mouth of the Gate during the entire watch. Brian Fitch
