Friday April 18, 2014 Jenner CA.
Lots of critters on the river today
I put in about eleven AM today and paddled across the river to Penny Island and on up.
I passed by these merganser ducks on the east end of Penny Island.
I saw a bunch of turkey vultures back across the river so I paddled over to see what they were doing. Seems they were eating an old big fish in the mud. A raven was with them getting it’s share. The fish was likely a fish that had spawned and was spent.
Just past that was Paddy’s rock where I took this photo of what’s left of the cormorants. There are still a lot of cormorants on the river, but a lot of them have left to likely do some nesting somewhere else.
Continuing on up the north side of the river, these guys were sharing the shoreline.
And I’d heard the wild turkeys while coming up the river and caught up to them and here is one of them, keeping an eye on me.
Little geese
Just past that was this goose with the first little guys I’ve seen this year.
Seal Heaven
I decided to continue up the river to seal heaven which is about another mile or so up river.
This is seal heaven as I approached. No seals there today.
Markham’s Hole
As long as I was that far up river, I continued on up to Markham hole, about another half a mile.
This is the view as I pulled into that area where I sat around for a half hour or so before turning and heading back down the river.
A new harbor seal pup
Just before I crossed back under the highway one bridge, I passed what I thought were just a couple of harbor seals in the water.
Just below the bridge, I passed them again and continued on about a hundred yards past that spot to take a break.
But as I was sitting there, I heard a bunch of splashing were the seals were, so I had to go paddle back and see what was going on. A guy and his dog where on the shoreline as I approached what was in the water. The guy shouted a seal and an otter were fighting. I didn’t answer and continued to approach and see what was going on. I saw this harbor seal and it made a snorting noise like the snorting I heard yesterday, when I heard all the splashing. I’m thinking that yesterday, the mamma seal may have been getting ready to give birth?
This is the seal I saw.
But it wasn’t fighting with an otter, it was a seal with a brand new pup.
This was one of the smallest seal pups I’ve seen. I’m not sure what was going on, just a mom and pup playing and learning or what. The seal didn’t mind me being there and didn’t leave, but continued to play. I finally told the guy on the shore what I saw and continued to take pictures, almost on top of the seals.
I left them to play and headed on down the river.
This is my view of Jenner as I paddled along heading down the river.
Terns are here too
I went down the back channel of Penny Island and on the west end of the island were a big flock of terns with some seagulls mixed in too.
Here’s a few of them.
I decided not to go down to the river’s mouth as I was a bit tired out from going up the river so I headed on back towards the launch ramp.
I passed this pair of mallard ducks.
Some days on the river, there is more wild life than others and this was one of the more days.
Nice day.