– As fall rolls toward winter, we’re socked in fog and sideways rain. Bleak weather on this isolated rock! Check out the Cal Academy webcam (link at upper left) – maybe later; right now it just shows a wall of gray. We can’t complain, since the last week brought good vagrant weather and a nice
Month: October 2010
Los Farallones
Los Farallones
FARALLONATHON – DAY 7 – THE FINAL DAY
The final day of our Farallonathon dawned with a light northwest wind, mostly clear skies, and 30 miles of visibility. These conditions are not great, but not terrible either. Unfortunately, there were not many landbirds around. The tailwind for easier flying and clear skies for navigating allowed most birds present over the last few days
FARALLONATHON – DAY 6
Wow, three straight days of light east wind – there’s got to be a fallout here someday! The cloud cover this morning was about 50% cirrus, which isn’t great, but better than no clouds. The visibility, though, was 30 miles, which means the mainland was clearly visible. I suppose that would be where all the
FARALLONATHON – DAY 5
Another day dawned with light east winds and cloudy skies. Supposedly light winds and overcast skies bring lots of birds, so when we woke up and found that there was just a single knot of wind out of the east and 90% altostratus cloud cover, we thought for sure that there would be a good
FARALLONATHON – DAY 4
The dawn weather seemed pretty good for the bird fallout we’d been waiting for. The skies were mostly cloudy, the winds were only 2 knots out of the east, and the visibility was barely 20 miles. These conditions usually bring lots of birds. Today did bring birds, but not as many as anticipated. Walking around
FARALLONATHON – DAY 3
The day started out with clear skies and a 10 knot breeze out of the northwest. The weather forecast had made it sound as though the day would be even windier, and so we were all quite excited to see that we might get more birds than anticipated. Within an hour of dawn, the wind
FARALLONATHON – Day 2
Although the forecast for the end of Farallonathon looked good, we knew day 2 would be a blow out. Gale force northwest winds are not good for much on the Farallones during the fall, as it gives all the birds on the island a tail wind to fly away, and it prevents new birds from
FARALLONATHON BEGINS
Two days ago we began our annual Farallonathon. The Farallonathon is similar to a Bird-a-thon, but on the Farallon Islands, we do things a little different. Instead of counting just species of birds, we count all of the animals we encounter including birds, fish, marine mammals, insects, and any other wildlife we find. We even
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