Tuesday March 24, 2015 Jenner CA.
I arrived at Jenner this morning about 10:30 and put my boat in the water. Parked the car and paddled across the river to Penny Island and sat to decide which way to go today. While I was sitting there, I saw Ray pull into the parking lot with his truck, so I waited for him to catch up.
We decided to head down to the river’s mouth area today to see what was going on, so we headed off in that direction.
The seagull and the raven
On the way and almost to the mouth, I saw this seagull laying on the shoreline with it’s wing out, so I started to paddled over to it, when this raven landed.
The raven took a peck at the seagull which the seagull wasn’t too happy about as you can see in this picture.
The seagull finally jumped up and flew down the beach a short distance and landed to rest in peace.
The raven hopped around for a bit, then took off and was gone.
Cormorants
Ray and I continued on down to the river where we sat in our boats for a bit in front of the open mouth and watched. These cormorants where sitting down near the end of the river. After awhile the cormorants all took off, so Ray and I headed on over to that big rock which is called haystack rock.
Mamma Seal?
We were sitting in our boats out in front of the rock when this harbor seal pops up near me and just stays there for a bit. I watch it and then forget about it while we sat around some more. Interesting, I’d forgotten about this seal when the next thing happened and didn’t remember taking it’s picture until I reviewed all my pictures tonight. But some of the harbor seals know me quite well and sometimes pop up near me as if to say hi, so I didn’t think much of it at the time.
What’s that in the water?
Ray wanted to go to shore to take a walk and look at the open river’s mouth, so headed to the beach. As I was headed to the beach, I heard an air breathing sound near haystack rock so I go over to investigate. What I see looks like a just born harbor seal laying on the bottom. Is it hurt or dead? It’s in shallow water and there are no big seals around, I thought, as I had forgotten of the harbor seal that had popped up by me just a bit earlier.
The new pup
Harbor seal pup, not born too long ago. This is what I saw as I approached it.
I pulled in fairly close to check it out and it finally came to the surface to get some air. It knew I was there, but didn’t seem to mind. I watched it go back down and then surface for air several times. I decided it looked ok and the best thing to do was to leave it alone and let nature take it’s course, good or bad. Of course, like I said, at that time, I’d forgotten about the harbor seal that had popped up near me a bit earlier near this spot.
River’s mouth is open
I left it and went over to join Ray on the sandy beach. Here’s Ray walking along the open river’s mouth, looking out into the Pacific ocean.
This is what it looked like, looking south over the open river’s mouth towards Goat Rock.
We stayed on the beach for a half hour or so, then got back in our boats. I went on over by haystack rock to see if the pup was still there. I found it still on the bottom. It might of just been resting as I’ve seen seals sleep under the water before.
The little seal pup as it comes up for some air.
Osprey strikes
Ray and I started heading up the river when there was a big splash to our right. An osprey just dove for a fish and missed. It flew back up in the air and dove again in another spot and was successful. Here it is flying away with it’s catch. A trout looking type fish in it’s talons.
Ray wants to go for a walk
Ray was thinking he wanted to go for a walk. I said where? How about Poison Oak Alley Trail? Ok with me, so we headed up the Penny Island back channel to the Swamp Rock trailhead which was also a place to get on the Poison Oak Alley trail.
We passed by this pair of geese on the way.
A walk up the trail
Here’s where we put ashore to start our walk, looking down to Jenner.
We headed up river along it’s edge, going through a lot of brush and poison oak.
Something’s spooked the birds
As we were walking, I saw two mallards come flying from down river and the male was quacking the alarm call as it flew past us. I said something spooked those ducks and about that time a bunch of these cormorants by Paddy’s rock moved into the water as something was spooking them too. I said to Ray, something’s spooking the birds, do you see anything? Maybe there’s an eagle I say.
The cormorants just before they spooked into the water.
An eagle
I think Ray said a hawk, but what I saw was an immature eagle which I barely got a picture of as it flew up the river.
We walked about a mile up the river and stopped to rest, before turning and heading back down the river.
How Poison Oak Alley got it’s name
Here is Ray going through some grass laced with much poison oak. This is the spot I originally named the trail for. You can’t walk down this trail without hitting some poison oak. Ray and I are mostly immune to the stuff, luckily. It’s just getting all it’s new spring leaves on it and looks so nice and lush.
We got back in our boats and headed on back in for the day. We passed by this mallard pair.
I went on home for a nap. All this boating and walking the last couple days has really worm me out, so all I could do was hit the couch for the rest of the day. I had some plans to mow some grass, but that didn’t happen.
Nice day at the river.