~ B. Everett Jordan Lake ~
One of our favorite hangouts
The state's official web site on
Jordan Lake.
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I gotta keep myself honest and admit to you that, aside from the joy I always received with my shelties, boating on the lake (ANY lake, actually) has to be my most favorite thing to do. This first was taken at the Clinch Mountain Overlook in eastern Tennessee. "Have boat, will travel..." |
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An interesting factoid about this old 14' bass boat (with most of the things that made it a bass boat replaced with different, or removed altogether!)- anyone who fishes in the area knows my husband and his boat. Most of them would actually like to BUY the boat because it is a "lucky" boat, made infamous due to frequent entries and first-place winnings in local crappie and catfish tournaments. The boat, of course, is not nearly as "lucky" as my husband's intimate knowledge of the lake, its shores, and the habits of its fishes. But it doesn't stop his buddies from vowing to "buy that boat one of these days..."
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The great
blue heron, while not the only, is one of the more commonly seen water fowl on Jordan
Lake. You cannot miss them - their honk while flying past is
unmistakable, and the great whoosh! of their wings an unforgettable
trademark. Though I have often tried, I have never been able to get very close for pictures of the heron. They seem to appreciate their personal space and fly off with a big HWOOOOONK! and flap of wings. |
These three photos are the closest I have ever been to a heron. I took the first picture as he stood fishing as you can see in the photograph above.
In the next photo you can see him as he began to SWIM off, but then he finally decided I really was getting too close for comfort and he took wing, flying off.
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This is definitely the closest I have ever gotten, but you hafta admit, this is pretty durned close! The water trail he leaves behind him and catching him in a strong wing beat is a pretty good catch through my lens, I think. Cool. Way cool. |
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The next two pictures are of one of the greatest - and among my favorite - pictures I've been able to take on the lake. Here at right you can see an osprey nest in the crook of an old tree left standing when they filled the lake. The dot just above the edge of the nest is an adult osprey, sitting on the nest. Just after I took this first photograph the osprey took off, in that ages-old act of protecting the fledglings. I captured this bird in flight, in the next picture. |
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Blue herons and osprey
are not the only birds living on the lake. There are scads of sea
gulls. I always thought sea gulls were - well - SEA gulls, and had
no idea they would live on inland fresh water until Jordan Lake. My
husband laughed at me... Um, they're water birds, right? Yes. And they eat fish, right? Yes. So why can't it be FRESH water? Uh, duh, I dunno.... |
These next two images are cormorants. Cormorants are referred to locally as "black ducks" but they aren't really ducks at all. They dive into the water from the surface to catch prey (rather than the kamikaze dive of gulls and some raptors). They seem rather social, as evidenced here with so many nests in one tree...
Though wild, these birds seem to have become so used to human boating contact, they seldom take flight when a boat approaches, usually not moving unless you get nearly close enough to touch the tree, not at all like the heron or osprey, which fly off much sooner!
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The next image (at right) is an interesting one. The disturbance at the top of the water indicates a swarm of bait fish (a "bait ball") coming to the surface to feed. Normally this means game fish are not far behind. Sometimes we toss a throw net to catch the bait fish, but more often than not we watch for them to top-water swarm, then decide where to throw our next hook... |
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This photo is way cool, I
think. One evening while we were out on the lake we spotted this
small, single-engine airplane buzzing the lake. The plane is fairly
close, as you can see here. It did get closer, but I ran out of film
and didn't get pictures of him as he drew closer. Story of my life - I have never seemed able to take enough film to catch everything I find I want to catch on camera! |
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The lovely pastoral scene in this next photo is the Haw River just above the lake proper. The Haw was dammed a couple of miles south (as the bird flies, or as the boat floats now that there's water in them-thar hollers). The portion of the river which runs through the dam at all times goes on to meet the Deep River a few miles farther south, forming the headwaters of the Cape Fear River, which then flows on to the coast at Wilmington. If you're interested, there's a photo of a huge catfish catch from the Cape Fear on the Meet Amy Page... |
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The Haw River is a white-water river bisecting the State of North Carolina from north-west to south-east and is widely known for its many different challenges to white-water canoe and kayak fans. As a result the Haw is a popular river to run, but also lays claim to too many daring white-water runners heedless of the dangers of the Haw's sometimes quickly-rising and very swift waters.
There are many festivals and gatherings celebrated on the Haw River each year. Information on some of these can be found by visiting Ailea's Chatham County Page and following some links that are listed.
I am SO proud of these next two photos!
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In addition to the heron, cormorant and different species of gulls on Jordan Lake North Carolina is quite proud of the presence of the bald eagle on Jordan Lake. The lake hosts many nesting pairs of these beautiful birds (they mate for life, you know), and though I have often seen them from a great distance as they fly overhead, I had never seen one close enough to photograph. Until this day. |
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This particular day on the lake I was very lucky. Not only did we see the bald eagle shown above, but when boating in another area of the lake we saw a second bald eagle close enough for me to take a photograph. My husband said he thought the first bird was an immature bald eagle because of the coloring, none of which you can tell in either of these photographs. There's an area of the lake used to observe the many bald eagles who have chosen to call Jordan Lake their permanent home. They have regular, scheduled outings to the observation site to view - and count - the eagles there. |
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One day while driving over Jordan Lake on U.S. 64 east I saw two bald eagles nearly face-to-face. The bald eagles were riding the wind just above the bridge as I drove over and MIGHT have been about 50 feet away from my car, hanging nearly motionless in the stiff breeze that was blowing. I'd never seen any other kind of bird to that when I've driven over the 64 East bridge, so seeing this kinda blew me away.
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These next two photos
show a sight we do not often encounter on the lake: white-tailed
deer. Not that the deer are not there - they are - they just seldom show themselves during the day like this along the lake. Usually you hear them walking or sometimes crashing through the woods long after the sun has set and the moon come up, not in broad daylight. |
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On this evening, though, there was a couple of young does and a buck crossing a small cove, so we idled the boat as close as we dared we could get while I took a picture of the one doe (above left), and the buck as he stood and watched us intently (right). Finally, we got too close as often happens on the lake, and the threesome was frightened into the woods. |
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See MORE Jordan
Lake - Fall, 2003
