Friday May 30, 2014 Jenner CA.
Otherwise, more biologists and birds
I had a real close call this morning pulling into the visitor center at Jenner. As I approached the visitor center place where I had to make a left turn into the lot, there was a logging truck parked across the entrance to the center. It was nosed up against a power pole, so to leave he had to back up. I noticed the guy left a little room behind him for people to drive in and out of the center, so I signaled for a left turn and proceeded to enter the parking lot,…………….But.
Just as I was in back of the truck, I notice the big log ends where heading right for my head only a couple feet from the car. Unfortunately, my car’s engine had died just as I started the turn so I couldn’t just goose the car, but continued rolling on in.
The guy in the truck finally saw my car and slammed on his brakes, just in the neck of time. As it all was happening I was thinking good thing he had those logs tied down good, or his quick stop could of torn the logs loose and I likely wouldn’t be here to write this blog.
That was a close one, indeed.
I thanked my lucky stars and put the boat in the water to a nice day. The sun was out and the wind was down with a little fog, mostly lifting.
Across the river I paddled, to Penny Island, taking my time, and slowly on up the river on the south side.
These two trusting male mallards where snoozing as I passed the east end of Penny Island. The one on the left did have it’s eye on me.
I paddled up past eagle’s landing and this was my view as I went.
After awhile of taking it easy, I crossed over to the north side of the river, just above Paddy’s rock.
Some geese where on the shore line taking it easy, with a bunch of bovinasorous coming down to drink.
I got fairly close to the bovinasorous and they didn’t charge. They seemed to be mostly just getting something to drink and taking it easy like me.
Just as I rounded Paddy’s rock I ran into these mostly cormorants on the gravel beach taking it easy. There seems to be more cormorants around today.
Rounded up some wild berries
I then crossed over the river again back to the south side and paddled down to the Swamp Rock trailhead to look for some wild berries to eat.
I found some and ate my fell of them.
Biologists tracking fish
Back in my boat, I saw some biologists in their boat down past the visitor center. It was Bill and Eric cruising around looking for steelhead fish they tagged with transmitters yesterday, as I reported.
Here’s Bill and Eric behind him as I came up behind them.
I talked with them a bit. They said they had tagged five steelhead yesterday and had found four of them so far. The boat can track fish out to about three hundred yards, I think he said. It can also receive the temperature where the probe is so they can tell if the fish is in fresh river water or salt water as they have very different temperatures in the river. The temperature transmitted can also tell them when something else eats the fish as the temperature would go up when the fish was consumed by a warm blooded critter.
These guys will be down here tracking fish for two mouths every day so you’ll be hearing more about them and maybe we’ll learn something interesting?
The river’s mouth is open
I left them to their job and continued on down to the river’s mouth where it was going towards high tide so a lot of ocean water was coming into the river and diving under the warmer and lighter river water right in front of me.
I sat around this spot for awhile watching things. Some Pelicans flew by as I took this photo of the open river’s mouth looking out into the Pacific ocean. Harbor seals on the beach too.
On down past the open mouth, I went by some more cormorants sitting on a rock taking it easy. They must be full of fish or they’d likely be out fishing in the incoming tide?
As I was leaving the mouth area, I passed by these geese in the water.
I paddled back towards the visitor center where I saw these mallard ducks.
One more time talking with the biologists
I was going to go in for the day when I saw the biologists again just up river from me, so I thought I go over and see if they had found the last of the five fish they had tagged?
Yes they had and they were continuing to track all five steelhead fish around the estuary. I talked with them some more before heading in for the day.
Eric and Bill tracking tagged steelhead fish, with the tracking equipped boat.
Yard work
I was planning to do the last of my mowing today, so I filled up the lawn mower with gas, but I couldn’t get it started so figured I wasn’t supposed to do that today.
I started some water on the next part of the great ditch I need to dig and puttered around the yard a bit.
I also started putting Polyurethane on some boards I use to eat on in my van. I got the first coat on. I thought it would be a good idea to seal the boards before they got too dirty. This way they will be easy to clean.
That was my day, another nice one.
