Geese, Cormorants, Pelicans, Seals and Flowers Paddling the Russian River Estuary

Thursday January 15, 2015 Jenner CA.

Morning coffee

I made another cup of my expensive coffee this morning. Peet’s Arabian Mocha Sanani. Since yesterday’s coffee was a bit strong, I cut the amount of coffee and it turned out more to my liking. It’s a very smooth coffee.

  As I was just about to leave for Jenner, Daniel came by for a brief visit. I gave him some of my fresh kiwis from my vine and then was off to Jenner for the day. The kiwis are late ripening this year, but they are starting to get good and there is a huge crop of them.

Jenner

It was over cast as I arrived at Jenner and a little on the cool side, but not too bad.

The boat was put in the water and I paddled on across to Penny Island and sat for a bit in the little channel on the upper end at this spot looking up the river.russianriver

 

Since it was a bit cool, there didn’t seem to be as many birds around today. They can fly off to warmer places without much trouble and they seem to do that when it gets cool.

Honking geese

I continued on up the river to Otter’s Log where a sat for a good while enjoying the day. Geese could be heard honking across the river from me. I watched to see if there was something around to put them on the alert, but didn’t see anything.

The geese across the river from me making a lot of noise.geese

 

I worked my way up the river at my usual slow pace and stopped often along the way until I made it up to the Muskrat next area where I sat for a good bit. Then I started back down the river.

Was the river’s mouth closed?

It was going to low tide, but the water level didn’t seem to be dropping much which made me think the river’s mouth might be closed. I’d have to go down to the mouth area and check it out to see for sure.

Cormorants

These cormorants were sitting on Paddy’s rock when I went by, just taking it easy, likely full of fish.cormorants

 

Too early for a sunset

I was headed down to the river’s mouth area. It was just noon and the sky looked like this for some reason, even though it wasn’t sunset time.noon

 

There were a bunch of seagulls resting on the sandy beach as I paddled on by.birds

 

Brown pelicans

I passed by this brown pelican taking a bath.bath

 

And this one was making a landing as I watched.pels

 

I made it down to the mouth and pulled in at this spot, looking back up the river.jenner

 

River’s mouth is open

The river’s mouth was open but the ocean had pushed more sand into the channel’s bottom causing the estuary water level to stay higher during low tide which it was by the time I got down there. In some ways it’s setting the river up for a possible close if the ocean gets rough enough to push more sand up in the mouth and close it.

And this was my view as I looked down towards the open river’s mouth from the spot in the above picture.mouth

 

Some harbor seals were taking it easy right near the open mouth.seal

 

I sat down there for about a half hour before starting back up the river where I passed by this pelican on the way.pels2

 

Spring is coming

As I was paddling back along the shoreline, these yellow flowers caught my eye. It may be winter still, but you can’t stop the spring which is on it’s way down here.flowers

 

I continued on to the boat ramp where I took my boat out for the day.

Just another day on the Russian River.

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