Sunday November 10, 2013 Monte Rio, CA.
Some Birds along the river
I started the day taking the exhaust pipe off my van that I tried to fix yesterday. I’ve decided to go to Santa Rosa tomorrow and get a new one made at a muffler shop as the old one just doesn’t seem to want to seal correctly. I thought there was something wrong with the pipe a long time ago, but now I know for sure.
My back is still causing me some troubles. I’ve been using cold packs on it. The cold packs seems to help quite a bit, but the side effect is it’s making me feel cold. Sitting on a cold pack for a half hour several times a day, adds up.
Some sun was in order
So today, I decided I wanted some sun for sure, so I went down to Monte Rio to kayak, as it’s usually warmer than Jenner.
Around noon I put my boat in the water and headed down stream at a very leisurely pace. I wasn’t planning to go far today, only down to the Villa Grande Hole and back, so there was no hurry, not that I hurry much anyway.
I could tell by the water level at the boat ramp that the river’s mouth is still open.
A mallard duck pair in the view as I paddled down stream towards Villa Grande.
This is the Villa Grande hole just as I approached it. I spent over an hour in this area at different spots along the bank.
I passed a great blue heron fishing on the shoreline.
This is one of the spots I sat for awhile. This is looking back up the river towards Monte Rio.
An egret was fishing along the banks as I passed on the way back.
And another one fishing as I went on by.
I sat in this weed patch for awhile on the way back to Monte Rio.
While I was sitting there, a seagull landed close by with something. Looking closer, it turned out to be a crawdad.
Heading up the river some more, I ran into some more mallard ducks. This one is a male mallard duck, who came over to check me out. Monte Rio is good to ducks, so they are more friendly in this area and don’t fly away.
A bird was screeching in a high tree above me, that I had to maneuver to see. It turned out to be an osprey.
My view going back up the river, just below Monte Rio. 
Even though it was a fairly nice day, I just couldn’t seem to get warm, so I was off the water and went on home where I got my woodstove fired up and warmed the house and me up.
That was pretty much my day.