Tuesday December 17, 2013 Jenner CA.
And some sea lions too
Ray was in the Jenner parking lot as I arrived in Jenner this morning. He said he was just down at the River overlook on highway 1 and the water was just barely coming in over the sand. It was high tide and the river’s mouth was still closed with sand.
We put our boats in the water and paddled over to Penny Island and entered the little channel on the east end and sat around for a bit, before continuing on up the river towards eagles landing.
Someone’s on the hill at Eagle’s Landing
As we approached eagle’s landing, I thought I heard some one up in the hills at eagle’s landing which was strange as no one but me usually goes up there because of all the poison oak.
But sure enough, three guys with sprayer backpacks were coming down the hill there. Too bad they didn’t know where the trails are.
As they made it down to the water’s edge, I asked who and what they were doing. The first guy I asked didn’t speak much English and I didn’t speak much Spanish so we didn’t do very well, but the next guy spoke some English and I was able to find out they were spraying invasive plants for the state or someone?
They were spraying the pampus grass, not sure of the spelling on that one? They were dressed in overalls and gloves so as not to get into the poison oak. Good luck guys. :O)
I’m glad I ran into them as the spray they used was green and showed up on the plants. I would of wondered what that was and how come all the plants were dying if I didn’t see them.
Ray and I paddled across to Paddy’s rock and sat around for awhile watching the guys on the hill side.
Eventually we started back down the river on the south side, just taking our time.
Is that an eagle across the river
A big bird was flying by across the river. It looked like a big hawk, but too big. It spooked some ducks on the water and then landed in a tree across the river. Ray said, turkey vulture, I said, no, flaps it’s wings too much and is too big.
I paddled across the river to check it out, while Ray waited for me.
There were some geese over there it might have been interested in, but they stood their ground.
Here is the view of what I think is a young bald headed eagle. The crow seemed to be waiting around to see if it might get some eats, but it didn’t.
This photo is a little closer of what I think is a young bald eagle.
There were some mallard ducks nearby which were keeping an eye on the eagle.
Eventually the eagle flew off and I went on back to the other side of the river and I rejoined Ray.
This is the view of Jenner as I crossed back over the river to where Ray was.
Turkey vultures
Just as I got back to where Ray was, he says, there’s some vultures over there across the river. Darn, I just came back from that side. Oh well, I went over to see what they were doing.
This is a picture of the turkey vultures across the river, the little black spots.
So, I paddled back across the river to see what they were doing. They were eating on something, but I couldn’t tell if it was a deer or a seal at first, so I had to get close to find out.
Turned out it was a deer that had likely gotten hit by a car on the road above?
A few turkey vultures and what’s left of the deer.
After checking that out, I went back over and joined Ray again and we went into the little channel on the east end of Penny Island and sat for a spell.
Eventually, we came out and paddled up the north side of Penny Island heading for the river’s mouth.
The wind was dying down now and the water flattened out.
This is the view we had heading down to the river’s mouth.
There were some sea lions doing something just inside the closed river mouth. Maybe resting or what? Turned out there were at least seven of them in some kind of a pile, mostly under water.
Here is a picture of some sea lions and there are more of them piled up under that one.
I’m not sure what those sea lions were doing, I think they were taking a nap.
The river’s mouth is closed
We went over to check out the closed river mouth.
Here is a view of where the river’s mouth should be. Closed up with sand. Lots of seagulls on the beach.
By now, the water surface had gone real flat and we just sat around enjoying things. Seals and birds and just a nice day.
Here is Ray just as we started back in for the day.
We slowly worked our way back to the launch area.
Here is a view looking west from the visitor center just before we pulled our boats out for the day.
We saw a few interesting things and really enjoyed the nice day at Jenner.