I saw Ray across the river in his kayak as I drove into Jenner this morning. It looked like it was going to be a nice day with the sun out and just a low wind. I joined Ray and we decided to head on down to check out the mouth area so we headed on down that way along the island’s edge.
This was our view as we headed down to the river’s mouth area, which is near the center of this picture.
We paddled past this loon showing it’s stuff.
Seal pups
As we approached the open river’s mouth, I was taking a picture of these seals with their pups when I noticed the bald headed eagle sitting on the sand in the background.
The eagle flew into the air and was doing some diving around the river’s mouth entrance, but then flew away before I could get there to see what it was doing.
There were quite a few seal pups resting on the beach some with their moms and some without their moms. There moms sometimes leave the pups on land while they go off and feed and do things in the water, but they are usually not too far off. Because of this, there is always a lot of pups calling out for momma, as far as I can figure out. After awhile the calling out gets to ya and you want to get away from it all.
Here’s a momma seal with three pups near by, only one of them being hers.
We watched as this pup kept calling and moving along the shoreline until it’s mom joined it at this spot and they both disappeared into the water. It’s like mom said to stay on shore until I come back.
We stayed around the mouth area for an hour or so, then headed on up the river going up the back channel of Penny Island. We passed by these two big redwood tree stumps. The one on the left has been there for a long time. The stump on the right has just joined it. The sideways roots tend to stick them in the swallow gravels in this area. These are both natural stumps, not ones planted by the Russian River Steelhead guys. One of the problems with the Steelhead guys planted stumps is they don’t have any of these side roots left on them, so they don’t stick well and tend to float out to the ocean because of it. Of course, I’m sure they have to use what stumps they can get a hold and most of those have their roots cut or broken off.
Shore birds
I haven’t seen any shorebirds around lately. This one caught my eye just past the stumps. I think it might be a yellow legged willet?
We were paddling along the edge when we spotted this turtle on a log. I think it was the same one I saw a ways down river from this spot the other day. There aren’t usually many turtles down in the estuary, I think maybe they don’t like the salt water?
A little walk along the shore
Ray wanted to go to shore for a little walk and get some exercise, so we went ashore at this spot, called Eagle’s landing. The fog is staring to creep in on us.
We walked up the trail that goes along the shorelines. I call it Poison oak alley for good reason as there is a bunch of it on the trail.
We walked about a quarter mile up when Ray says this is far enough, so we took a break in this spot before starting back. That’s Paddy’s rock out there.
It’s spring time, so all the plants are growing and getting real lush, including the poison oak and the nettles. Some of the nettles get seven feet high. One got me in the hand which I still feel.
Ray going through the lush growth. There’s a trail in there somewhere.
Snake
When we got back to our boats I sat down for a break and Ray says there’s a snake in the rocks. This is the little snake I could see from where I was sitting. a harmless garter snake.
Light fog
We got back in our boats and were headed on back to the launch ramp paddling along this spot. The fog was coming in lightly as we paddled.
As we approached the town of Jenner the fog thickened up a bit. It was a warm fog so not unpleasant at all.
We made it to the boat ramp and headed on home for the day. I had intentions of doing some yard work, but that little walk tired me out, so all I could do was rest up when I got home.
There are over a hundred pictures that are served up randomly every time you visit or change pages. They are of earlier pictures of interest and also some just to remind me of things.
A Sony AX33 4K, a video camera that takes stills too. What am I doing with that? I take pictures from my Kayak a lot. I found I was missing interesting shots, because my pic was being processed in my camera, before it would let me take another pic. Since I like to take what I call action stills, I bought this camera to take videos, that I could make stills out of, but, as a bonus, this camera also came with buttons to just take stills and that's what I mostly do, unless something is real interesting or too far away for my still zooms. My digilat zoom setting for video goes to two hundred x, and sometimes I need that, but usually, I only use the 10x lens zoom. Because this camera is HD and 4K, the quality has to be real good and it has a lot of stabilizers on it which really helps out a lot for taking pics on the water.
The other thing it has that is a must is a view finder and I had to buy Sony's top of the line cam to get it. This is a must for taking pics on the water, as you must hold the camera as still as posible and putting that eye piece to the eye forms a tripod with your arms that helps a lot. The eye piece is also a must as it works way better than a LED screen to see what you are taking a picture of in the daylight as the LED screens wash out easily in sunlight.
I also have another video camera, a Canon VIXIA G30. I use them both to mostly take stills. The Sony takes higher resolution stills than the G30. That was a bit of a disappointment as I bought the G30 to replace an older camera I dunked in the river, but then had to buy the Sony to get higher still picture resolution that the G30 was lacking.
