Thursday June 11, 2015 Jenner CA.
Diving cormorant
As I put my boat in the water at Jenner this morning, something caught my eye right away. Turned out to be a cormorant diving for fish right in front of the visitor center. I watched it trying to see what it was eating, but it got a gob of grass with whatever it got each time and it swallowed the fish before I could get a picture or see what it was.
Here’s the cormorant.
The fog was moving in as I watched, but the wind was down real nice and the temperature was just right.
Headed for the river’s closed mouth
I decided to paddle down to the closed river mouth to see what’s going on there so I paddled over to Penny Island and went down it’s side, then crossed back over near the car overlooks. I was thinking there might be an eagle or something up in the big trees I was going under. When I looked up, I was surprised to see this osprey sitting up there.
From there I could see across the river to where the river’s mouth is usually at, by the jetty. You can see to the right of the jetty, where the people are, that the beach sand closing the river isn’t much higher than the closed river, so it could open, or stay closed. The people are watching the ocean waves breaking on the sandy beach on the other side.
I headed on further to the end of the river going by these cormorants. You can see the fog has come in, but it’s still real nice out.
End of the river
This was my view from where I was sitting at the end of the river, looking back up the river. A bit of fog, but note the still water.
As I left that area, I could see some ducks in the fog up ahead which turned out to be surf scoters.
Paddling onto Penny Island
With the mouth closed and the estuary water level slowly rising, the lower end of Penny island becomes flooded and I can paddle onto the island a bit.
I went on over to see if I could paddle onto the island. Just barely. I had to push through the grasses.
There was a great blue heron preening over on the side, keeping an eye on me as I moved on by.
It was so nice and peaceful on the island I hung out there for quite a spell before heading back out through here.
What’s that
As I was paddling out through the grasses, I saw this in the distance through the fog on the sandy beach by the ocean. It turned out to be a parasail some guys were trying out. Not going in the sky in the wind, but the wind was low so they were practicing getting it in the air, but not going on up. You never know what you’ll see down here.
Headed up the river
It was too early to head in yet, so I headed on up the river a bit, going past these merganser ducks on this log. Still foggy, but it’s clearing up in this area.
I passed on by my buddy the harbor seal. With the water level up, it likes this log.
I want some berries
I wanted some berries, so I went to shore at what I call Spyglass and walked down the Poison oak alley trail.
The trail goes right through this area, which is mostly poison oak, nice lush poison oak.
I found a few blackberries along the way, some sweet and some a little on the sour side, but still good.
Thimble berries
I came across these thimble berries I saw the other day. Today a lot of them were ripe so I ate my fill of them. They are sorta like a raspberry, but not the same taste. they taste like thimble berries. :O)
I walked down as far as where the harbor seal was resting that I’d gone by earlier. This is the view I had from shore as I was looking for berries.
I headed on back up the trail to my boat, but before I got there, I walked under a rather shady fir tree where there is some nice grass to lay on, so I spent some dream time there. It was real peaceful. Once I was rested up, I returned to where I had my boat and paddled on down the river and went on home for the day.
That was it for a nice foggy day on the river.
