The Dungeness Crab Have Arrived, Paddling Jenner in the Evening

Sunday July 27, 2014 Jenner CA.

Birds and a bit of fog too

I started out the day puttering around the yard doing little chores here and there, between naps. I heard my brother Barry across the street weed eating his grapes so I went over there to see what he was doing and also to eat a peach.

The peaches were a bit too ripe for my liking, but I ate one anyhow. It was juicy and messy and it got all over me.

Barry grows grapes to make homemade wine and is very good at it

Here’s my brother Barry, weed eating his wine grapes. He needs to get the weeds out of here so he can put on his bird netting. The weeds have to go as they get caught in the net and make things difficult.

I talked with him for a bit and stole a tomato from my other brother Tom’s garden and went home and made a fresh salad to eat.

Down to Jenner for an evening kayak

I left for Jenner around 5:30PM.

As I arrived I could see the fog was coming in, so there wasn’t likely going be a sunset tonight. It was warm and the wind was down which is always nice. Most of the people had gone for the day.

Here is the view as I paddled across to Penny Island, looking up the river, where I was headed. You can see the fog coming in.

Several egrets feeding tonight

This egret landed not far from me and started feeding.

Redwood log graveyard

I paddled up past otter’s log and into this area I call the redwood log graveyard. There is a small egret there, a snowy egret fishing along the shoreline.

I continued up the river and crossed over below Paddy’s rock to see what birds where resting on the shore.

A loon with a broken leg

This loon was on the shoreline and didn’t seem too frightened of me. I think I’ve passed this one several times. It seems to have a bum leg and when I’ve seen it before, it can’t walk on land well. But it seems to move through the water well, diving for food.

There was a family of merganser ducks resting just past the loon.

Here’s a few of the merganser ducks I passed.

I paddled back across the river to rat nest beach and sat for awhile before heading on back down the river.

I stopped at eagle’s landing for awhile and watched and had something to eat.

The snowy egret is still fishing in this spot

I continued on down the south shoreline to the redwood log graveyard where that little snowy egret was still fishing away. I followed it and watched.

It’s catching and eating the little Dungeness crabs

It seemed to be catching the little two inch Dungeness crabs that come into the estuary in the summer. I hadn’t seen anything catch any of the crabs this year, until today, which means they have moved into the estuary now.

Here is the snowy egret. I left it at this point and continued on down the river, very leisurely.

Fog down the back channel

This was the fogged in view of the town of Jenner as I headed for the back channel of Penny Island that I paddled down.

Shore birds feeding

I passed these two shorebirds feeding as I approached the west end of Penny Island.

Sat in the slot

I pulled into the slot on the south shore near the west end of Penny Island and sat for a spell.

What are the seagulls eating?

I could see some seagulls in the water catching something and some white pelicans resting on the west end of Penny Island from were I sat.

Eventually, I paddled over to see what the seagulls were catching and eating.

The Dungeness crab are here now

It turned out the group of about ten seagulls were catching the little two inch Dungeness crabs, one right after the other,  so it appears the little guys have finally come into the estuary in numbers from the ocean.

A seagull with a little crab, it just caught in the water. The seagulls  jump up in the air and dive into the water a short distance to catch them.

Are the white pelicans mad?

I watched the seagulls for about twenty minutes, then moved on around the end of Penny Island, where the white pelicans were resting.

Here’s a few of them. They seem to have a mad look today?

Fog, but no sunset tonight

With all the fog, I didn’t bother to stay for sunset, I headed on in and was off the water about 8PM and went on home for the night.

Even with the fog moved in, it was warm out and no wind, so was very nice out, for another nice evening paddle at Jenner.