Tuesday March 18, 2014 Jenner CA.
And a memorial for Chris Reed
I met Ray at Jenner around eleven this morning. He said, special day, he’s going to scatter Reed’s ashes on the river. Ok.
As we paddled across the river to Penny Island, I noticed some big birds flying up river over the island. Ray says, pelicans, white pelicans. These birds don’t’ stay here long, but sometimes stop for awhile migrating south and right now, migrating back north. White Pelican’s are fresh water birds and head for rivers and lakes somewhere up north of us.
Here are the pelican’s as we saw them.
While checking my photos of the day out, I noticed something about these birds. They all had something in their bills or on their bills? They don’t nest here so it’s not nesting materials. The photos aren’t sharp enough to make out what is there, but you can see what I’m talking about in the below zoomed photo.
Chris Reed’s Memorial
We leisurely worked our way up to Eagle’s landing. Ray put out some flowers and scattered some ashes and we reflected on Chris Reed. He was a good friend of Rays and I went to school with him too. A very creative type guy who worked part of his life working for Lucas Arts, during the Star Wars time.
We did a bit more reflecting on life after that and Ray mentioned that he and I are the only ones left that live locally from our elementary school days. I didn’t think he was right at first, but he sure was. We are it around here. Older guys. :O)
Across from us, on and near Paddy’s rock where a bunch of cormorants resting, over two hundred of them.
Could this be a golden eagle?
After scattering the ashes we turned back down river and shortly this big bird flew by which Ray said was an eagle. But what kind? A golden eagle maybe? I took some pics as it wasn’t’ that close to us and planned to zoom in on it at home and see if I could put a make on it. It looked like it might be a golden eagle, which I’ve not been able to confirm seeing in the area as of yet.
I can’t see this bird as good as I would like, but this might be a golden eagle. It also might be a young bald headed eagle as they look similar before they get their white head and tail.
Our walk on Penny Island
Ray wanted to go for a walk on Penny Island and asked if my sore ankle was up to it? Only way to find out was give it a try. We pulled in here on the east end of Penny Island.
We made it down one side of the island and were going to cross over to the other side to go back. But the trails aren’t easy to find on the island as it’s fairly overgrown.
Which way is the trail?
To the right Ray, through the grass. :O) Straight ahead now Ray.
I’m pretty sure I’m the only one alive that knows where most of the trails are on Penny Island as I’ve been coming down here for over six years now and have done a bit of exploring, but I still get slightly lost too.
Bobcat sign
I pointed out to Ray the scratches on the willow trees were made by bobcats as they travel the trail. Ray is checking out one of the bobcat markings. They’ve marked the trail in a lot of places.
The trails on the island aren’t your normal just go for a walk trails. Some trees and logs and other stuff has to be climbed over to get through some of the places, which makes for some real good body exercise. All the muscles in ones body come into play to get through this stuff.
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The only thing of danger right now on the island is nettles, which are just now popping up on the trail, but they can be fairly easily avoided if one watches out for them and if you don’t watch out for them, they will tell you to watch out for them in short order, sorta like cactus tell you, watch out.
That was a good walk around about three quarters of the Island and we were a bit tired from that work out.
Here is Ray as we started to get back in our boats on Penny Island, east end.
We paddled down the back channel of Penny Island. The wind had died down while we were on our walk.
Another eagle fly’s by
A smaller bald headed eagle flew by headed down towards the rivers mouth. This one was mature and since it was smaller, likely a male as the females are larger than the male birds.
Ray went on in for the day and I paddled down to see what’s going on at the river’s mouth, where the river meets the Pacific ocean.
The river’s mouth is open wide and shallow
The river’s mouth is open. There are a lot of harbor seals on the beach along with a lot of birds, mostly seagulls, but some ducks and cormorants too.
This picture is looking from the river out through the river’s mouth into the Pacific ocean.
There were quite a few cormorants hanging out near the mouth. Most seemed to be just resting up.
Here are some of the cormorants hanging out near the River’s mouth today.
I headed on in for the day and pulled my boat out around four PM, about five hours on the water today, with an hour for walking on the island.
Nice day, especially after the wind died down.