I Think That Harbor Seal Just Caught a Big Eel

Saturday December 26, 2015 Jenner CA.

Suns out winds down

Things were looking good as I drove into Jenner this morning. The sun was out and the wind was down. I put my boat in the water and crossed over the river to Penny Island and started paddling down along it’s north shoreline. I ran into these two grebe and the coots on the way.grebe

 

I pulled in behind that stump for a bit and enjoyed the day for little while.river2

 

Seal catches a big eel

Just past that stump I pulled into a little slot and was just sitting there when a big, fast moving wake came from my left and sped past me and disappeared to my right. It sure looked like a harbor seal chasing a big fish, but wait, I said nothing catches big fish when the water is muddy from the rains. But it was high tide and there was plenty of ocean water in the estuary so it wasn’t as muddy as up river right now.

Shortly a harbor seal came back and stopped just in front of me and wrestled with this thing for a minute or so.  I could see it didn’t look like a big fish, but it did look like some kind of big eel.eel

 

The harbor seal then disappeared and I didn’t see it again.

I paddled down to the lower end of Penny Island and sat here for a bit looking down towards the open river’s mouth.island

 

Mouth’s open

I could see the mouth was open from that spot and it looked like this.mouth2

 

I paddled on down to the mouth area. There were lots of birds, mostly seagulls and some harbor seals resting on the beach down there.birds

 

I paddled on past the open mouth down to the end of the river and sat for a bit. There was quite a bit of wood debrie floating around on the water down there.sat

 

Lots of harbor seals

Eventually, I headed on back towards the mouth passing all these harbor seals. You can see some ocean spray from the waves crashing on the beach  on the other side of the sandy beach.seals

 

I paddled on by these seals and on up the river.seal

 

Eagle’s Landing

I went up the Penny Island back channel and on up the river. As I approached Eagle’s landing, a bold headed eagle flew out of the big trees there, crossed the river, circled once or twice and then flew on up the river and out of sight.eagle

 

I paddled on up to the muskrat area and sat for a bit watching things and napping just a bit too.

From there, I crossed over to the other side of the river to look for birds along the shore as I headed back down the river.

I passed by this little bird feeding along the shoreline.bird

 

And these and other mallard ducks resting along the shore.mallards

 

I was going along here headed back in for the day with the town of Jenner up ahead.jenner

 

And paddled by this great blue heron fishing along the shoreline.heron

 

From there I pulled into the boat ramp and headed on home for the day.

With these short days it was cool out when I got home as the sun was already behind the mountain to the west, so I hit the couch for a nap and that was about it for the day.

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One Response to I Think That Harbor Seal Just Caught a Big Eel

  1. Patti Godwin says:

    That blue heron was so close to the mouth today. All your wildlife friends were out showing off again. Good.

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