Friday, November 6, 2026
A Lapland Longspur was logged at Santa Cruz on iNaturalist, the only sighting of it in these waters in the past year. Think about that. A rare bird, a familiar coast, and this page one day late. The same site carried an Olive Ridley Sea Turtle logged at Pacific Grove, which makes 5 sightings there in the past year, so the turtle is merely scarce where the longspur is a stranger.
The surface cooperated. From about 11:20 AM the wind at NDBC 46042 held under 5 kt for 4 hours, a flat bay from water that almost never offers it. Underneath, the swell at NDBC 46042 peaked with a 14-second dominant period, long clean energy from weather nobody here saw.
The longspur had no reason to stay, and a bird that rare does not take requests. The flat water is gone too: the National Weather Service's Monterey office said that afternoon that moderate to fresh northerly winds would hold through Friday, with moderate to rough seas through the weekend. That 14-second swell has already spent itself on the rocks. Thursday kept the good parts.