Wild Turkeys, an Otter, a Brown Pelican While Paddling Around the Estuary

Thursday March 26, 2015 Jenner CA.

A bit of fog

The fog was just lifting as I put my boat in the water this morning at Jenner. It looked like it was going to be a nice day and it was.

This was my view as I paddled across the river to Penny Island.

I decided to paddle up the river today, taking it easy along the way. A couple of geese have been on Paddy’s rock the last couple days, I hope they don’t start a nest on the rock, because the rock is an island now, but the water level can change and the rock is no longer an island and the nest will get robbed like last year. There were some cormorants resting on the gravel by Paddy’s rock.

Ridge top wild flowers

I noticed these wild flowers up on the ridge looked like they were peaking.

Muskrat nest beach area

I was listening for turkeys, but hadn’t heard any as I pulled into muskrat nest beach here.

Just as I was pulling in, I saw this great blue heron fly into the same trees I was headed for just in front of me.

It flew away as I pulled in to this popular spot.

Sounded like a big bird crashed into the tree

I was sitting on the shoreline in my boat just to the right of this picture when I suddenly heard a big bird crash into that tree in the middle of the picture. It was quite a crashing noise and I was wondering what kind of bird did that?

I watched as the big bird tried to get it’s balance in the tree. I couldn’t make out what it was, but it was big with all it’s feathers fluffed up.

Wild Turkey

I paddled on over to the tree and got under it and I was finally able to see that it was a wild turkey that had just crossed the river and landed in this tree. It was having a bit of trouble getting around in all the sticks in the tree and was looking for a place to take off, to get into the bushes behind. I watched and it finally flew off into the bushes with a big gobble.

I could hear some gobbling as I went back to my spot and sat in my boat. Eventually, I saw two more turkeys fly across the river and land in the brush near where this turkey was. Gobble, gobble.

Lots of jumping fish

I was watching a lot of trout type looking fish jumping out of the water around me. Quite numerous. Six to sixteen inches long. I thought, boy, there seems to be a lot of these fish in the estuary right now.

An otter fishing along

Eventually, I headed back down along the shoreline, working in and out along the trees when I spotted this otter right in front of me. We looked at each other, then it dove and I didn’t see it again.

Redwood tree graveyard

I paddled on down the river to a place I call the redwood tree graveyard as there are about six of them lined up together in this spot. They are under the water at the present time. Some of the harbor seals like to sit on them, so as I approached there were two seals there. As they moved off, I saw why some of those trout type fish were jumping out of the water. The fish seem to be jumping to get away from something that might be wanting to gobble them up.

Jumping fish

This is one of my favorite sitting spots. As I sat, many fish were jumping out of the water in front of me, but could I get a picture of one of them? Of course I’d see some jump, then rise the camera and they wouldn’t jump. I persisted and  this is my best one. You can see a fish off to the left and a splash off to the right. That fish didn’t jump that far. The splash to the right was from another fish that had already disappeared back below the water. They are fast and not easy to get pictures of. I think I’ve seen more of these fish this year than any other year.

Paddling down to the open river’s mouth

I continued on down to the open river’s mouth area and went by these harbor seals playing in the water, or maybe fishing?

There were some sea lions fishing around the estuary today too. At least three of them, maybe more. They were doing a lot of barking and sure can bark loud. Too fast to get any pictures of them.

Resting cormorants

Here’s some more cormorants resting on the beach by Haystack rock. They must be full of fish to be resting like that.

I paddled down to the river’s end and went by this pair of merganser ducks.

Brown Pelicans

I sat around at the end of the river for a bit, then started on back when I noticed a brown pelican flying around.

The Pelican was just starting a dive in this picture. It hit the water, but I couldn’t see if it got anything or not?

I headed on in for the day and was off the water around four thirty and went on home.

I spent the rest of the afternoon puttering in the yard and taking it easy.

Another nice day.