Thursday February 18, 2016 Jenner CA.
Some wind
I headed on down to Jenner this morning. It was overcast and the wind was up a little as I put my boat in the water and paddled across to Penny Island where I pulled into the little channel on the upper end to get out of the wind.
I’m just paddling into the little channel on the upper end of Penny Island here.
I sat in the little channel for a half hour or so. While I was sitting there the wind seemed to have decreased to just a few miles an hour which wasn’t bad.\
That little feather
I ventured out the other side of the channel and went past this great blue heron on a stump at the upper end of the island. Do you see that little white feather on it’s bill from preening? I’ve seen more than one bird with the little feather right in that spot, so I’m thinking it might have something to do with preening that is more than just a loose feather hanging around on it’s bill?
Are those wild turkeys
I thought I saw some wild turkeys across the river from me, but I couldn’t make them out, so I took a picture to check out later. Yes, they were wild turkeys. More of them had moved behind the bushes.
I decided to work my way up the river just past Paddy’s rock to see if I could get out in front of the turkeys as they were feeding along in the grasses, so I started off up that way.
Cormorants
I went past Paddy’s rock which had all these cormorants resting on it. The gravel they usually rest on by the rock is under water right now as the estuary is backed up a bit from the open mouth bottom being higher than usual which acts as a dam backing up the estuary.
I paddled over behind Paddy’s rock and just sat in my boat waiting to see if the wild turkeys would come along grazing. Eventually I noticed I was drifting down the river and had forgotten about the turkeys.
I passed by these geese.
Headed to the mouth
I decided to head on down to the mouth and see what it looked like since the estuary water level has risen a bit. It might be closed?
I pulled into one of my spots on the lower end of Penny Island here and sat for a bit.
The surveyors
Then I crossed over the river headed for the mouth, when a second glance at these two guys caught my attention. I think they are the guys that map the sanded beaches once a month so they can see how things move. They walk around with that pole and set it on the ground in places. It transmits back to a receiver station somewhere so it’s all gets recorded and they can put it on a computer.
I paddled on down to the end of the river past the open mouth and sat here for a good spell, looking back up the river.
Looking up at the overlook on the highway, I noticed something.
The guy with the pole that had been down on the beach was up there with their receiver station.
An osprey flew in and was circling around looking for fish, but I didn’t see it dive on any.
As I started to leave I almost ran over this little grebe. I’ve been mistakenly calling it a Least grebe, but Dan says it’s an immature eared grebe and I think he is right. I’ve seen a number of these birds down here, but no adults yet. They are a small diving bird.
Open mouth
I paddled over to the open river’s mouth area where these harbor seas were resting. The mouth was flowing out good just behind the jetty.
Eventually, I headed on back to the Jenner boat ramp and put my boat on the car and went on home.
Raspberry patch work
I had a little nap and had planned to do some things in the yard when I saw my brother Tom and his girl friend Dominique working clearing a new berry patch in my back yard, so I went out to help out a little. We have to take out a bunch of old berry vines and then get the metal stakes out and all the wire and the irrigation pipe under it all.
Tom just moved his tractor into place to start pulling out the metal stakes. Those are plum trees blooming.
We worked on that for the rest of the day and got it mostly cleaned up and leveled out a bit. The plan is for ever-bearing red raspberries.
I still had a little time before dark, so I sat around the yard a bit until it started to cool down.
That was my day.
