Jordan Lake: I found myself very much in need of some peace and tranquility this evening. I went back to this morning’s cruise with Captain Doug and brought up this great egret and then let the 12-year-old child within me have a hand in making this note and reminder that peace, contentment and tranquility are needed throughout this whole world. Have a blessed evening.

great egret

Jordan Lake: Pied-billed grebes are a winter visitor here. They come down and spend the colder months with us. What I find really neat about the pied-billed grebe is, that like all grebes, it has feet where each toe has a lobe surrounding it. These lobes make the foot look like a tree leaf as you can see here in this photo. This makes the little grebe a very fast underwater swimmer as it dashes about catching fish and crustaceans for its food. I always smile when I see these grebes because they sure look like they are shyly smiling at the world.