Turkey Vultures, An Eagle, River Otters and Some Birds

Friday January 15, 2016 Jenner CA.

Winds down, looks like a nice day

It wasn’t raining as I got it going this morning, but it was overcast as I drove down to Jenner today. But as I approached Jenner, the sun was out and the wind was down. It looked like it was going to be a nice day as I put my boat in the water at the boat ramp.

Joan hollers eagle

As I was paddling away from the boat ramp, Joan hollers out, there’s an eagle on the big tree on the island, just where I’m headed. Sure enough there was a bald headed eagle up in the top of that big tree. Joan suggested that I get on the other side of the eagle so I was on the right side of the sun for a photo, so I paddled and maneuvered and this was the best I could do.eagle

 

From there, I headed on up the river at a leisurely pace taking my time and stopping often. This is how things looked as I made my way up the river just above Penny Island.river

 

I spied these vultures

Over to my right on the shore, I could see some turkey vultures doing something, so I went over to investigate. Don’t these guys look like a bunch of can openers? :O) I guess they are really carcass openers. They were working on something in front of them that I couldn’t see.vultures2

 

Eating this big fish

I maneuvered around scaring them all off, but I was able to see what they were eating. Looks like a big spawning fish,  likely a steelhead, although there still are likely some salmon coming into the river to spawn too, but right now, mostly steelhead are coming into the river. This one is about two feet long, or about two thirds of a meter for you Canadian types. I’m not sure what did this one in, but the seals and sea lions sometimes injure these guys when they try to catch them and they go off and die.fish

 

The eagle missed out

The eagle in the tree wasn’t far from this spot, but apparently it didn’t’ see the vultures so they didn’t have to share.

River otters miss out too

While I was watching them some river otters popped up not far from the vultures and I thought they might take the fish from the vultures, but my presence kept the otters looking my direction and they missed the dead fish, lucky for the vultures. I would have liked to have seen what would happen if the otters tried to take the fish from the vultures, but that didn’t happen. I think the vultures would have let the otters have it, but I’m not sure about that. I’m sure an otter wouldn’t’ think twice about eating a vulture, but since it didn’t happen, I’ll never know for sure.

Anyway, here’s two of the otters that crawled out on a rock for a bit.otters

 

No wind

I continued on up the river as you can see there is no wind.river2

 

I sat here

From there I crossed over the river to Paddy’s rock and continued up the river just a short distance to this spot where I sat and enjoyed the sun for a spell, looking down the river.sun

 

More otters

I decided this was far enough up the river today, so started back down towards Paddy’s rock. Just past the rock these three river otters popped up and were heading down the river in the same direction I was going, so I followed them for a bit.otters2

 

Eventually, they crossed over the river and went to shore and I lost them, so I continued on down the river headed for the mouth area.

Open river’s mouth area

As I  approached the river’s mouth area, I could hear and see big waves breaking over the jetty rocks. The ocean has been real rough for the last couple of  weeks or so, some days rougher than others.mouth

 

Looking out the mouth

As I paddled to this spot just inside the open river’s mouth and looked out into the ocean, this was my view. Lots of brown pelicans and harbor seals were resting on the beach on the left shore with the ocean breaking on the beach in back of them. This is where the river meets the ocean.mouthbirds

 

I hung around the mouth area for about a half hour then started back up the river and this was my view.clouds

 

A lone otter pops up

A lone otter popped up near me headed back up the river. Otters do loops. What I mean by that is they travel from one spot to another spot, then return making a loop. For instance they will leave Monte Rio in the morning and hunt down along the shorelines to Jenner, then turn around and hunt back up to Monte Rio making a loop. They loop a lot from what I’ve seen in the past.

Here’s the lone otter that popped up by me.otter

 

Vultures sunning

Just past the otter, there were some turkey vultures with their wings spread getting some sun in this sunny spot.vultures3

 

I slowly worked my way back up to the boat ramp with this view up river as I approached the ramp.ramp

 

Puttered around the yard

I took my boat out of the water and went on home where the sun was shining so I puttered around in the yard planning some yard work until the sun went behind the mountain which meant it was time to go in for the day.

That was my day for a nice one.

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2 Responses to Turkey Vultures, An Eagle, River Otters and Some Birds

  1. Bob says:

    Maybe I’ve got the Canadian thing with metric wrong. I just assumed, since you sell gas by the liter Canada was on metric. But maybe it just depends on where you are in Canada to what you use. I agree that the Celsius temperature makes more sense. The whole business has mostly just complicated my life. Instead of learning about a subject in school we seemed to spend most of the time learning how to convert back and forth which sure complicated what we were trying to learn in the first place. But now that I’m retired all that has no meaning anymore and things are simpler. :O)
    Thanks for the comment,
    Bob

  2. furrygnome says:

    Interesting comment about Canadians and metric. I’ve adapted to celsius instead of fahrenheit easily (making 0 = freezing just make so much sense), but cm., metres and hectares are still another world. It’s feet, inches and acres for me still.

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