Saturday April 26, 2014, Jenner CA.
An unexpected grave find
Being Saturday and all, there is usually quite a few more boats on the water at Jenner. But with the rain coming in tonight, and a little weather going on, I was the only one at the ramp putting my boat in the water. Ok with me. I’m not complaining. :O) It always amazes me how often I can be the only one on the river with so many people living around here.
The wind was up a little with clouds and some sun shinning through too. I paddled across to Penny Island and slid on in to the little channel on the east end.
Nesting Mallards
There had been a pair of Mallard ducks in there for a week or so that have gotten fairly used to me. I noticed the female duck just feeds and doesn’t even pay attention to what is going on around her much, but the male is standing guard and always keeps an eye on me.
I think the female is sitting on a nest and has to feed and get back on the eggs as she was not there later in the day, but he was.
This is the pair of them with the female feeding away. The male fed some too, but he stood guard most of the time.
I hung around there for a bit before continuing on up the river.
This is my view as I continued on up the river on the south shore.
I slowly worked my way on up to Dead Deer Gulch where I sat under these trees for a bit before turning around and heading back down the river.
I wanted to check out what I think is a Musk Rat nest to show you what the entrance looks like. To do that, I had to remove a few of the sticks of the nest.
This is the nest with the sticks removed to show what the entrance looks like.
They line the entrance with grass to keep it warm and keep other things out of the nest. You can’t see the hole well, but it goes on down through that grass, just behind the little green weed growing there. The nest inside is likely lined with the grasses too.
I was planning to put the sticks back on the nest, but when I saw the little green weed growing there, I decided not to because that little weed may indicate that there is no longer any thing using the nest and I decided to leave it the way it was to see if it gets repaired. If it does get fixed up, it will show that there is still a critter using the nest.
From there I moved across the river to Paddy’s rock to check out some birds.
The view just past paddy’s rock looking down towards the town of Jenner.
Some unexpected graves
From there I saw what looked like maybe a hawk or something on a post a ways up ahead of me, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was. When I got closer, I saw it was a little flag on a post and took a picture and continued on. What I didn’t see until I got home and was looking at my pics for the day, is that there is also two graves there that I had never noticed before in the seven years I’ve been coming down here. A little fenced in area.
Just as I was ready to leave, I saw this little Blue bird which stayed around long enough for me to get a picture of it.
By now, the wind was really up
The wind had come up a bit more by now, so I had to work a bit to get back down to the little channel on the east end of Penny Island which is out of the wind.
A little nap was had there in this spot.
Headed for the river’s mouth area
It was pretty windy by now, but I decided I’d go on down to the river’s mouth area, wind or not.
I saw this white foam in the middle and followed it on down to the west end of Penny Island. I think, maybe it’s easier to paddle in these types of trails, but I’m not sure yet?
I stopped at the west end of Penny Island for a bit, then headed on down to the river’s mouth in the wind. The ocean was real rough and the mouth was open shallow.
Let the wind do the work
After that, I decided I had enough wind and turned my boat towards the launch ramp. I didn’t have to paddle much, just kept it heading in the right direction and let the wind do the work.
I saw two other kayaks put in during the morning which were only out for a bit, otherwise I had the place all to myself and the critters today.
Worked on my cutting board cover
I went on home and worked on a wooden cover for my cutting board in my van. Since the van is fairly small, I tend to put my feet up on the cutting board, which isn’t too sanitary, so I thought I’d build a board to fit it, which I could remove when I needed too. I got it all cut and glued, now I need to get something to paint on it to help protect it.
That’s it for another nice day.