Thursday November 6, 2014 Jenner CA.
Steve was at the boat ramp at Jenner this morning when I arrived. We put our boats in the water and headed across the river to Penny Island and on up the river on the south side taking our time.
A deer on the island
I saw some movement on the island as we passed by the old milk barn. Turned out to be a deer which was watching us closely.
We passed these harbor seals and cormorants. I hadn’t seen the black seal in a long time, about a year.
We could see some biologists diving up ahead. It looked like they were removing their underwater current device from the eagle’s landing hole.
In this picture, I could hear the biologist lady shouting to her partner who was in the water, there’s an eagle that landed in the tree that was being chased by a red tailed hawk. I didn’t see the eagle, but she was pointing over to what I call Eagle’s landing.
Target shooters
We could hear a lot of shooting today and looking up to the ridge top across the river from us, we could see a couple guys there shooting at a target.
We worked our way up the river on the south side until we almost made it to the highway one bridge where we turned around and started back down the river.
We paddled along the river heading back down.
Looked for the coyote
I hadn’t seen the coyote in a few days, so we decided to go over to the north side of the river by Paddy’s rock to see if could spot it.
It didn’t appear to be around as some coots were taking it easy on the shoreline that likely wouldn’t be there if the coyote was around.
We continued on down the river checking for birds on the shore and looking for the coyote.
Steve stopped behind me to look at something and I continued on. He told me later he was looking at a lone otter.
Coots
Down near the end of the field the cows were in, I spotted a bunch of coots near the shore. I approached and pulled my boat into the little drainage ditch which is the water to the right of this picture and watched.
I was sitting there watching the coots when I noticed there were also some young geese feeding on the shoreline too. The coots are on the left and the geese are on the right, near that downed tree, with the town of Jenner in the background.
Geese with their guard down
After a short time, the geese relaxed and started feeding. These were young geese and they made a big mistake. Notice all their heads are down feeding. No guard, like the older geese usually have.
I took a lot of pictures of the feeding geese and had just put my camera down , when all of a sudden, the coots and most of the geese took off. Something scared them.
A Golden Eagle?
I looked for what had scared the birds and this is what I saw. I didn’t hear or see anything of the strike as all the other birds flew without making a sound, except for all their flying noises.
At first, I thought this was a young bald eagle, but it didn’t quite fit the bill. I’ve never gotten a picture of a golden eagle in our area as there are mostly bald eagles around here, but occasionally I’ve thought, maybe I’d seen a golden eagle.
I watched the eagle tear into the goose and start devouring it.
I stayed and took pictures for about a half hour while it gorged itself.
I’m still not sure, but I think this is a golden eagle?
I left it after about a half hour and crossed over the river to catch up with Steve, who was heading down the back channel of Penny Island. We continued on down to the shot near the west end of the island. The wind was picking up quite a bit by now.
We paddled onto the flooded island
After resting in the slot, we went over to the west end of Penny Island and paddled onto the flooded island, where we had a good break, mostly out of he increasing wind.
It was about four thirty in the afternoon when we headed on in for the day and took our boats out of the water and went on home.
I never know what I’ll see kayaking around the Russian River Estuary. Another nice day.
