Just Another Bird Day Paddling Around in the Russian River Estuary

Friday June 20, 2014 Jenner CA.

When I arrived at Jenner to kayak today, the wind was picking up to about a medium wind, not good, but not too bad either.

I put the boat in the water and paddled across to Penny Island and on up the river.

Checking out the bird life

I decided to cross back over the river to the north side to see what birds were sitting on the shoreline as this is one of the places they seem to like.

First up, I ran into this momma mallard duck with some newly  hatched little ones. She was leading them away from me up into the grasses.

This is what it looked like as I paddled up the shoreline in the wind checking out the bird life along the way. Some Bovines taking it easy on the shoreline too.

Next I ran into these cormorants, with a merganser duck sleeping close by too.

And just before I got to Paddy’s rock, I ran into these merganser ducks.

I rounded Paddy’s rock to get out of the wind and looked on down towards the town of Jenner.

The way the wind was blowing, changing directions, it was almost impossible to get out of the it. I headed on back down the river and tried to go down the back channel of Penny Island.

I passed all these resting mergansers and a couple terns on the east end of Penny Island.

It was low tide and too shallow to paddle through this spot by the big redwood log.

I turned around and paddled back around the east end of Penny Island where I went past these cormorants and merganser ducks taking it easy, dozing away.

As I rounded the end of Penny Island I went past this great blue heron fishing away.

Any berries left on Penny Island?

I decided to go ashore on Penny Island to check out the berry situation, as in eating them if there were any?

I put ashore here. It’s real low tide right now and I’m always concerned my boat might get away when the tide comes back in. It doesn’t have to rise much in this spot to get my boat. I checked my watch and I should have enough time to go for a short walk?

What can happen to those that don’t take heed

This is what happened yesterday when some people didn’t watch were they put their boats and the high tide started to come in.  Four of them with no one in them floated on by me. While I was thinking about what to do, I saw they had one more kayak and a guy was on his way to retrieve them, so I continued on my journey.

I entered Penny Island here on this trail on the east end.

That trail goes up past these trees and the old milking barn on my way to find some berries to eat.

I did find some berries to eat and when I finally ate a bunch, I stopped and took this picture.

I walked on down to the Plum tree and ate a few of these plums that were ripe. The red ones are too ripe for my taste, so I ate the greener ones down in the lower right.

While walking around, I’m still concerned about my boat being out there on the gravel, so after eating my fill of berries I headed on back. The boat was still there. :O)

It was still early today, but I decided to quit early and go to Home Depot to get some pipe fittings for some water springs I want to tap soon. I did that and it wasn’t too painful.

When I returned home, I had something to eat and my nap of course and then did a bit of weed mowing and prepped some of the pipe for the spring work. I sat around and enjoyed the yard until dark and that was it for the day.

Nice day.