Friday October 31, 2014 Jenner CA.
I could hear it raining as woke this morning, but as I got it going, the showers were letting up, so I decided to head down to Jenner for the day. I threw my rain pants in the car and headed out that way.
It wasn’t raining in Jenner, but I put my rain pants on just the same, just in case. Turned out I didn’t need the pants.
Fishing mergansers
I put my boat in the water and headed across the river to the little channel on the east end of Penny Island were I heard a bunch of splashing. Turned out to be some merganser ducks hunting fish in the water in a group.
This egret was watching the mergansers and flew on over to get ahead of them by the shore to hopefully get in on some of the fish the mergansers were chasing.
I crossed over to the south shore of the river and started working my way up the river and the day looked like this.
Passed by Whiskers the seal
My buddy Whiskers the harbor seal was sitting on a log with some birds. I passed by them on the right.
Whiskers didn’t’ move as I passed fairly close, between it and the shore.
Whiskers is one of the harbor seals that seems to spend most of it’s time in the river and doesn’t seem to go out in the ocean much.
Muskrat Nest Beach
I slowly worked my way up the river to Muskrat Nest beach where I sat and watched for a good while.
Lots of uneasy coots
There were a bunch of coots across the river from me, maybe about three hundred of them.
The coots seemed to be uneasy and keep scooting around like something was close by that they were being cautious of. I looked around, suspecting an eagle or some otters in the water, but didn’t see anything.
Scooting coots.
Eventually, I decided to work my way across the river and go down the north side looking for birds along the shoreline.
Loon with a fish
As I crossed the river I spied a loon, with a small fish in it’s beak.
And eagle fly over my head
The coots where still scooting around as I went. A big bird flew over my head from behind me, with a white tail. An eagle. It flew down the river where I could see it joined another white tailed bird. Two eagles. They flew off in a southerly direction, down along the ocean. Those pure white tails are easy to see for a long distance.
Not a deer, but a coyote
I was paddling along the shoreline when I thought I saw what looked like maybe a deer laying on the grass, but as I got closer, it turned out to be a coyote, which was maybe part of the reason the coots were scooting around and uneasy?
Here’s the coyote just as I first saw it.
By the time I saw it, I was a bit close, so eventually, it slowly got up and slowly moved off down along the shoreline. I saw it once more as I moved down the shoreline.
A fishing kingfisher
I went by this kingfisher that was diving in the water fishing from this log.
And finally, the river otter shows itself
While I was watching the kingfisher, a river otter finally showed up. It was diving and fishing, headed down the river.
The otter disappeared and something else caught my eye along the shore, which I went over to investigate. Turned out to be a seagull eating a wing off one of the coots.
The otter appears again
I crossed back over to the south side of the river cruising along, when the otter showed up again. I followed it for a bit taking pictures as it fished along. I took a lot of pictures, but only a few turned out good, as they move a lot.
Here is the otter eating a fish it just caught.
I followed the otter until it headed down the back channel of Penny Island where I left it to it and headed back into the little channel on the east end of this island. As I was headed over there, I heard some load honking and looked up to see these geese flying by headed up the river.
I continued to paddle down the north side of the island. When I got to the west end of the island I tried to paddle onto the island, but the water from the closed river mouth wasn’t high enough to do that yet.
Headed to the closed river’s mouth area
So, I headed down to the river’s mouth area. There were a bunch of these grebes fishing down that way. They seem to like this area and hang out in it most of the winter.
I checked the closed river’s mouth and it was about the same, closed up tight.
I paddled down to the end of the river and thought I saw a great blue heron sitting on a rock with an egret, but as I got closer, the egret turned into a brown pelican.
I hung out for a bit in this area. It was cloudy, but the wind was down today and I didn’t even get rained on, not even a drop. The sun popped out off and on.
I headed on back in for the day.
Another nice day kayaking the river at Jenner.