Monday May 5, 2014 Jenner CA.
I heard a wild turkey
Seems I was the only one kayaking Jenner today as I put my boat in the water. There was a little wind and the sun was shining.
I paddled on across the river to Penny Island and on up to Paddy’s rock, where I thought I heard the call of a wild turkey, but I couldn’t see anything.
I got my elk call out of my pack and produced a sorta turkey call and waited. No answer, but shortly this wild turkey was spotted coming out of the trees along the river’s edge, looking for the turkey that made that call.
Can you see the wild turkey coming out of the trees?
The turkey was being cautious and went back out of sight and after waiting awhile for it to come back out, I crossed back over to the other side of the river as I wanted to take a hike up to the Indian lady’s face rock.
No walk up to the rock today
That’s the rock up on the hill top, but when I paddled over to the trail, the water level was too high to easily get out of my boat without getting wet, so I canceled that idea.
The wind was picking up some so I decided to stay in the area instead of going down to the mouth area which would be much windier.
I crossed back over to Paddy’s rock again and this was my view looking down towards the town of Jenner. Nice big clouds in the sky today.
The goose gang
I was surprised when these geese came out of the trees and went into the water as I approached the area. They saw me and the alarm went off, they started honking.
Those two geese up on the top of Paddy’s rock gave the alarm and got them all honking.
About twenty adult geese flew in to help protect the little geese to my surprise. At least that’s what I think was going on?
Some of the geese that flew in.
I watched them for awhile and a few of the geese took off towards the ocean.
I left them to do their thing and went back over to see if I could get the wild turkey going again. I gave a call and waited a bit and it showed up again. It was all by itself and I think it was looking for some company, as in more wild turkeys, but no more seemed to be around today.
I watched as the wild turkey searched for that turkey that made the call and eventually it started to move off feeding as it went. It passed by these two geese. There is also a great blue heron in the background. They sometimes feed in the fields on bugs, mice and gofers, snakes, lizards and things like that. They don’t eat just fish. They especially go to the fields when the river water gets muddy.
Salmon berries
I was thinking some salmon berries might be good. I usually don’t like salmon berries as they don’t’ have much taste and are sometimes a bit bitter, but the other day, I found some that had a little flavor and were almost sweet, so I was thinking maybe I needed to try some more and maybe I would change my mind about liking them.
So, I went on down to the west end of Penny Island in a fairly good wind.
I landed here on Penny Island to take a little walk and see if I could find some salmon berries as I knew there were a bunch on this end of the island.
A lot of the salmon berries bushes are over six feet high, which makes the berries hard to pick. I found some that weren’t that high and picked some to eat. Some were ok and some were just so. I think it will take more practice to pick out the tastiest ones, without getting the not so good ones?
These are some of the red salmon berries.
There is also a yellow variety that seems to be a bit tastier and sweeter too.
The wind was really blowing now
When I emerged back out of the bushes the wind had picked up even more. I put my boat back in the water and made up my mind to go around the west end of Penny Island paddling into the wind.
I stopped here to take a picture before continuing on. Note the white caps on the waves.
Grounded and the waves got me
I started to paddle into the little channel on the west end that forms when the water is high enough and the wind blew me into the shallows. The wind was broadsiding my boat and it blew me into the shallows and grounded my boat, which is not good. As the wind started to blow me into the shore the boat started to ground and I franticly started to push the boat back away from the shore before it really grounded me and I would get all wet. As I was doing this three or four waves came over the side of my boat and got my lower self all wet and put about a half inch of water in my boat. Oh well, just a little water. Lucky I had my camera put away in my pack.
Got wet again
Well, being all wet and near the end of the day, I decided to head on in. The wind was really blowing good now and I didn’t have to paddle to get back to the take out. But during my crossing the river over to the ramp, another wave came over the side of the boat, just to make sure I was good and wet. Now I had and inch of water in the bottom of the boat getting my butt all wet. My legs were already wet from the time before. I guess I wasn’t paying enough attention to what was going on?
Well, it wasn’t cold and it was only water. I got my boat out of the water and loaded on my car. I was all wet, so I decided not to go shopping for food on the way home as it looked like I wet my pants real good.
I went on home and changed and put my boat stuff out in the sun to dry off. It was rather cool out, maybe because I got wet, so I started a fire in my wood stove and took the rest of the day off.