Wednesday March 19, 2014 Jenner CA.
And sometimes you have to hear things to see things
It looked like a nice sunny day when I woke up this morning, so I jumped in my car and headed down to Jenner to kayak on the estuary and arrived just before eleven AM.
I put my boat in the water, parked the car and then paddled across to Penny Island and on up the south side of the river’s edge towards eagle’s landing.
This is my view back to Jenner just after I crossed the river to Penny Island.
I continued on up to eagle’s landing at a leisurely pace stopping here and there just to watch the day and enjoy it.
Sometimes hearing is seeing
I was sitting taking it easy at eagle’s landing when the geese across the river started honking. At first I didn’t pay attention, but all of a sudden it dawned on me. Look for an eagle somewhere? I did and there was one coming my way being chased by a seagull.
Here is what I saw.
So, I have my camera up and am trying to get a picture of this bird and most of the time can’t find it in the view finder and it’s heading right over my head. I see the bird for an instant out the side of the view finder and miss getting many pictures of this bird passing over, but I did get one, but not too good.
Ok, is this a golden eagle or a immature bald eagle? This, to me, looks like an immature bald eagle. You can see it’s head starting to turn the mature white and also the tail.
It passed over my head and headed on down the coast line and I didn’t see it again today.
Across the river from me there were a couple hundred cormorants on and near Paddy’s rock, just sitting around as far as I could tell.
A Hereford calf came down to the water’s edge to check out this goose near Paddy’s rock.
Seagulls battle over a little fish
I paddled over near Paddy’s rock and was sitting in my boat when a seagull landed near me with a small fish it was trying to swallow. Another seagull landed and wanted that fish also and give it a good try to get the fish away from the other gall.
But that gull wasn’t going to give up that fish and finally ended up with it and was just about to swallow it in this picture. Yuck. :O) I guess you need to be a seagull.
Right next to where all the seagull action was were these two Mallard ducks trying to get some sleep. I left them to it and headed back across the river to the south side.
I paddled along this edge of the river heading back to eagle’s landing, which is down to the right of the picture.
A little walk on Poison Oak Alley Trail
It was such a nice day out, I thought a little walk was in order, so I headed down the path called Poison Oak Alley. And yes, it really is full of poison oak, but it doesn’t bother me much.
I landed at eagle’s landing to hit the Poison Oak Alley trail which you can see below.
The trail is a bit rough and up and down and it was a bit harder on my sore ankle then I would of liked, but I had a nice walk, down about a half mile and back again along the shoreline.
Part of the Poison Oak Alley trail I walked on today.
After getting back from my walk, I sat on the bank and rested up before getting back in my boat and heading on back down the river.
Here is the view of Jenner as I paddled along with an osprey with a little fish up in the right corner.
There was a nice looking harbor seal sleeping on a submerged redwood log as I passed by the east end of Penny Island.
I was fairly bushed after my little walk so I wasn’t sure I wanted to paddle all the way down to the river’s mouth area, so I dallied along on the north side of Penny Island and saw these two deer feeding along the edge of the island. A momma and her yearling from last year. They saw me and moseyed on into the brush.
I paddled on down to the west end of Penny Island and was headed for the River’s mouth, when I decided I’d had enough for the day and headed on back to the Jenner launch ramp, about four PM.
Home and I did a little yard work spreading out some of the mulch in my blue berry patch and that was it for the day.
Another nice day.