A Great Blue Heron and White Pelicans Dine on Dungeness Crab in the Russian River Estuary

Friday August 15, 2014 Jenner CA.

Replaced the brake rotor on the car too

Here’s my view as I paddled on up the river this morning along the north side of Penny Island. Some high fog, with very little wind and the sun tried to come out several times.russianriver

 

Great blue herons eat crab too

It was low tide, so there was a lot of exposed shoreline. A great blue heron was near the east end of Penny Island as I passed. I didn’t notice it had something in his bill right away. Close inspection shows it to be one of the little two-inch, across the shell, Dungeness crabs. There is some green weed stuck to it too, so it looks a bit like a frog, but it’s a crab. There aren’t too many frogs in the estuary.heroncrab

 

White Pelicans ahead

Just as I passed the east end of Penny Island I saw some white pelicans across the river on the north shore. They were feeding along, so I headed on over there.pelicans

 

As  my boat got a bit closer, I took some photos to try to see what they were eating. The one in this photo has a Dungeness crab in it’s bill and is about to swallow it. pelcarb

 

Here are some of the white pelicans feeding. This is how these guys do it. Usually in a small group, sticking their bills under water and probing along, feeling things and catching them and eating them. The group likely works well, as one of them spooks some prey and it takes off, one of the other pelicans catches it and  eats it.pelicansfeeding

 

I’d been watching these pelicans for a number of days now.  I pulled my boat in near the shoreline between them and Paddy’s rock as they usually feed and work their way up along the beach somewhere below Paddy’s rock and go to shore to preen and nap. I wanted to see what they’d do with me in the way.

As they got close to me and could see I was in their path, they flew into the air and over my head to get to their resting spot.

Here they are just landing after they flew around me.pelicansflying

 

And, sure enough, they went to shore and started their preening.pelsicanpreenign

 

On up the river

I left the white pelicans preening and crossed back over the river to the other side and continued on up, at a slow pace, stopping along the way.

My view as I continued on up the river.riverview

 

I paddled on up to musk rat beach and sat around in that area for an hour or so. Things were very peaceful and the sun was trying to break through.

What a peach

I picked this peach this morning off one of my peach trees and devoured it as I sat there.
Very good. It got me to thinking of making some peach ice cream.peach

 

I started back down the river along here, moving rather slowly.downview

 

I looked over and could now see the white pelicans napping that I was watching earlier.pelicanssleeping

 

It seems they feed in the morning, then find a place to rest for the rest of the day.

The wind stayed down as I paddled along here, almost to otter’s log, looking down to the town of Jenner.jenner

 

Enough for the day

I decided to go on in for the day, so headed that way. This snowy egret was preening on a redwood log near the east end of Penny Island.snowyegret

 

I was off the water today around two PM and went on home.

Worked on the car

And a little nap and then I jacked up my car and replaced one of the brake rotors on the front that was messed up. That took a couple hours, but mostly went well without too much trouble.

A front parking light needed replaced, so I did that too and installed the new oil filler cap I lost the other day. I put a small chain on it this time, so I can’t loose it again. Seems they should come that way?

I rotated a couple tires putting my best ones on the front, as it’s front wheel drive car.

Some yard work too

A bit of clean up and another nap and then I went out and trimmed some brush around some of my cherry trees and cut some black berry vines out too.

I spent the little time left in the day sitting in chairs in my yard, just enjoying the evening.

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