Thursday June 19, 2014 Jenner CA.
Biologists first
One thing for sure is I never know what the day will bring kayaking down on the river. I was down at Jenner around 11 in the morning. There was a light fog, but the wind was down. As I put my boat in the water I could see the fish tracking biologists coming up the river my way at a very slow pace. I paddled out into the middle of the river and waited for them.
I paddled along keeping up with them as we went on up the river. We talked a bunch about the estuary and fish in general and shot the bull a bit too.
Checked out the vulture nest
I had been thinking it would be a good idea to go up to the old Indian ladies face rock and see if the turkey vultures were still in their nest or not, so I left the biologists near that trail and headed up there.
The trail goes through some real nice lush areas as well as a lot of poison oak.
Here the trail goes through this fern patch, right through the middle of them.
When I made it up to the rock, I sat down and took it easy for a bit enjoying the view and catching my breath from the walk up the hill.
After a bit, I went around the side of the big rock and down into the vultures nest area, which is actually the crack in the rock that is the old women’s mouth.
I wasn’t surprised not to find the two young turkey vultures still in the nest as from experience, I know that most bigger birds leave the nest as soon as possible and live in the tree branches while they mature and learn to take care of themselves.
The turkey vulture nest is in these ferns which is about a three or four foot crack in the big rock.
Since the birds were gone, I had a better chance to check out the nesting area. It’s actually a fairly well protected area with places to hide.
Here is the turkey vulture nest in the ferns. It’s just the ground as they don’t seem to build any nest, just use what is there already. It’s rather well worn from them using it.
Enjoyed the view a bit too
After checking out the nest, I went back up on the top of the big rock and sat around there for quire awhile.
This is my view from the rock down river towards Jenner. That fog moved out soon after this photo.
And this was my view up the river from the big rock looking at the highway one bridge.
Back in the water
After a bit of a rest, I came on down the trail back to my boat and was back in the water and heading on down towards the river’s mouth area. I went on down the Penny Island back channel. The wind was down, so it was real nice.
On the west end of Penny Island were a bunch of terns and some seagulls resting on the gravel.
Here is one of the well dressed terns resting there. Note the jewelry on it’s legs.
Brown pelicans diving for fish
I continued on down to the river’s mouth. Two brown pelicans were diving on fish in this area so I watched them for awhile.
Here is one of them just starting it’s dive to get some fish.
This one just dove and has some small fish in it’s pouch, which it will soon swallow.
And up it goes for another round. It flies up in the air until it spots some fish then dives again. I watched these guys for some time before continuing on to the mouth area.
The pelicans were diving because it was high tide and a lot of ocean type fish were coming into the estuary through the open mouth with the incoming ocean water.
More pelicans arrive
I left the mouth area and started to head on back in when I saw six more brown pelicans come in from the ocean and head up near the visitor center. I could see them diving on fish up that way, so I made my way up there.
This is how it looked as I headed on up to see what the fishing pelicans were doing up near the visitor center at the right of the picture. Nice day, eh.
This was my view of the fishing pelicans. There were also some cormorants fishing there too. Note the guy on the boat ramp. It always amazes me what people do not see. He never did note the fishing spree right near him.
This is one of the brown pelicans. I noticed seagulls would stay with one pelican and get some of it’s fish when it caught something. When the pelican flew into the air, the seagull would stay with it and land and share some of it’s catch when it caught something.
I saw a lot of pelican action today, so I’d say it was a pelican day. :O)