The Point Reyes Christmas Bird Count typically draws an intrepid crew—a good thing when king tides are surging, it’s blowing a gale, and trees are falling left and right. 

The weather depressed the count this year, not to mention the turnout, with some birders opting to stay home rather than risk being crushed by a falling bishop pine or blown off a cliff. But 130 birders held strong through Saturday’s storm, determined to complete an ornithological ritual that has endured in these parts for 55 years and for 125 years nationwide.

The storm rendered parts of the count zone inaccessible and forced birders to alter routes and schedules. But the bad weather had some upsides. The king tides concentrated waterbirds in dramatic ways, and the wind blew in some species rarely seen onshore.

Among them were a red phalarope, a black rail and a pomarine jaeger. The last of these is a piratical bully, robbing other birds of their catch—a behavior known as kleptoparasitism.

For birders seeking rarities, the appearance of the nasty bastard was a joy.

“To see a jaeger is pretty extraordinary,” said David Wimpfheimer, an Inverness naturalist who organized this year’s count. 

Twenty-seven teams participate in the local count each year, covering a 15-mile-wide zone centered in Inverness and stretching from Limantour Beach to Tomales and Chileno Valley. 

The winds had yet to reach full force when Ryan DiGaudio, a biologist at the conservation nonprofit Point Blue, set off with a team headed to Drakes Estero. Accompanying him were his wife, Marianna Recher, and their children, 9-year-old Elliott and 6-year-old Skylar. Miserable and wet, Skylar quickly decided she’d had enough and went home with her mom to make soup. Mr. DiGaudio and Elliott continued along the trail. 

They didn’t get very far.

“When we got to the bridge where it crosses the estero, it was pretty clear things were not going to go as planned,” Mr. DiGaudio said.  “It was right at the peak of the king tide, and it was blowing a gale. The bridge was barely above the water line, and waves were breaking over the trail.”

They heard branches snapping and trees falling around them. 

“Before it got terrifying, we were actually counting birds,” he said. “We did see an osprey, which is noteworthy at this time of year. And we saw birds flying backwards. It was unreal.”

Next, they went to North Beach and spotted a Leach’s storm petrel, a bird typically found 10 or 20 miles offshore.

“You never see a bird like that on land,” Mr. DiGaudio said. “It had been blown in by the gale-force winds. It took us a while to figure out what we were looking at because it was so out of context.”

At around 11:30 a.m. they decided to head home but discovered the park entrance was blocked by a fallen pine and downed electrical lines. They turned back and killed time watching elephant seals at Drakes Beach. They remained trapped in the park until sundown.

A group led by Keith Hansen, a Bolinas illustrator and author, had a less stressful day in Inverness Park.

“We sat under the eaves at the IP Market drinking fresh coffee as it poured down rain,” said Lisa Krieger, an Inverness Park resident. “From our comfy chairs, we saw a bald eagle, a ferruginous hawk, a red-tailed hawk and a red-shouldered hawk—all in about 10 minutes.”

When the rain abated, they ventured into the marsh across the road, where they saw a peregrine falcon tearing apart a smaller bird, feathers flying. “It looked like a pillowcase exploding,” Ms. Krieger said.

Wading in the muck, sharp-eyed U.C. Davis grad students spotted the pomarine jaeger speeding through the sky. 

The first bird count was conducted on Christmas in 1900, conceived by a National Audubon Society officer as an alternative to an annual holiday bird hunt. More than 2,000 counts are conducted nationwide, with Point Reyes often ranked in the top five zones for the number of species observed. Last year, counters tallied 194 species, but this year’s teams spotted a mere 170, according to Mr. Wimpfheimer.

“The previous all-time low was 181,” he said. “But those who came out this time gave all the effort they could.”

They were rewarded with a hot dinner at the Dance Palace, where the power had gone out and they dined at tables with battery-charged candles. (The staff at the Palace Market, which had a generator, heated up their lasagna.)

Josiah Clark, a naturalist from San Francisco, earned his dinner while wading in the Giacomini Wetlands, where he saw a startling concentration of birds that had been pushed upland when surging tides filled the marsh like a bathtub. 

On his way to town, he used a chainsaw to help clear two trees blocking Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. Later, in the wetlands, he spotted the black rail—a mouse-sized creature on the endangered species list.

“Of all the birds in North America, it is one of the hardest ones to see,” Mr. Clark said.