Date: 12/11/25 2:07 pm From: Keith Maley via groups.io <keith.maley...> Subject: Re: [SFBirds] Sutro Waterfowl
Similarly from Battery Godfrey, there was a moderate waterfowl flight this
morning. Offshore winds were stronger than predicted, building to 15 mph,
and the fog cleared after the first couple of hours. All waterfowl were
flying east into the gate.
On Thu, Dec 11, 2025 at 12:48 PM Brian Fitch via groups.io <fogeggs=
<gmail.com...> wrote:
> 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
>
>
>
