June 29. Chelomdja

July, 29.
Early in the morning, we set off to the Chelomdja river. The water level was raising rapidly, so we encountered murky waters and lot of logs floating downstream.  We also noted few dead pink salmon, indicating that the spawning season was better than last year, when we saw no dead fish.

We went upstream to the Khuren spawning grounds. The Kheta spawning grounds has a nest, which seemingly produced the first chicks in the area (see photos below). Left: the nest on June, 19, right, the same nest, July, 29. It appears that the eggs in this nest were laid at least 1 month earlier, than majority of the clutches in the same are (see the nest 100, above, along the Tauy with chick in down) and photos below. 

Chick (above) at a nest with an adult, at the Chelomdja river below Moldot ranger’s station.

For the night we stopped by the Kheta ranger’s station, and stayed there for one night. We had to leave the boat at the main stretch of the river and hiked to the ranger’s station first on foot, and then on a boat the rangers kept in the small stretch, which was isolated from the main river by the logjams and shallow water.