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By Grayced the Cat
Jordan Lake Rescue: Grayced: A new addition to my Facebook pages:
Hello! I am Grayced. I am Doc Ellen’s companion. We met 5 years ago at Jordan Lake. I was hungry, very hungry and hurt. Doc Ellen was hurting too. Doc wrote a great story about our journey together and filled it full of pictures (they are good even if I do say so myself). We want to share with you the history and the ongoing story of our lives together. So, you can meet with us in two ways: 1) join us on Facebook as I get my paws, um, Doc’s fingers on the keyboard on a regular basis to update our time line and 2) read about our history in the eBook Jordan Lake Rescue: Grayced – it is available for iBook and PC at http://www.dreamingsongsphotos.com. Ok. I am all groomed. Have gotten Doc’s fingers all limbered up and ready to type by tossing my favorite ball for me. We are glad you are here with us!!!!! Come by my Grayced the Cat site at www.facebook.com/GraycedCat/ and please continue to visit Doc and the eagles in the Jordan Lake Neighborhood https://www.facebook.com/docellen/
BTW, my Doc Ellen’s Journey will continue – am not replacing it with the Facebook page!
 

By Jordan Lake Rescue: Grayced

Ever so often someone asks me: Doc, how did you end up at Jordan Lake chasing eagles.  Here is the story of how Jordan Lake became a place of healing and refuge for both my body and my heart.  Grayced was a starved and badly injured kitten that I found underneath a pickup truck at a boat ramp at the lake.  This abandoned kitten and I, a veterinarian whose career was abruptly shortened by injuries, journeyed together as we re-learned life skills and grew contented with where our shared path has taken us.  Companions on a trek toward healing – Grayced from his many injuries and me from the results of a serious vehicle accident.  There are moments of light, laughter, veterinary medicine, tears of hurt and a lapful of cat purring the aches away.  This is the beginning of Doc Ellen’s Jordan Lake Journey as I began building a life as a wildlife photographer and journalist.

For iBooks, to preview, please go to https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/jordan-lake-rescue-grayced/id1277274909?ls=1&mt=11

For other eBook platforms, please go to  http://www.blurb.com/ebooks/638026-jordan-lake-rescue-grayced

I will be making a ten percent donation of royalties from the sale of Jordan Lake Rescue to the NCSU Veterinary Medical Foundation.  This program supports veterinary students at the veterinary college as they learn the skills needed for outreach programs such as spay and neuter clinics.

By JL Neighborhood, 5 photos 8/23/2017

In between watching eclipses and aerobatic bald eagles, I have kept my eye on other interesting critters …
This is father osprey plowing into the lake for a fish.


A white-tailed buck very calmly glanced my way and then went back to browsing.


Something must have tickled this great blue heron’s toes – he sure made a spectacular leap and didn’t take flight!

It was great fun watching the pileated woodpecker stop his hammering just long enough for me to get his portrait.


The three brassy little skipper butterflies were sharing a button bush blossom.

By JL Neighborhood and Eagle nest report post all the rain! 6 photos
First Nest’s neighborhood in the aftermath of all the rain
 
That is mom Kate on the lower branch and dad Petruchio on the upper one of a tall pine at the edge of their cove.
As the surrounding areas have drained, Jordan Lake is doing what it was created to do: control flooding.
In September 1945 the Homestead hurricane came up the coast from Florida and flooded eastern North Carolina.
Cities on the Cape Fear River were severely impacted by flooding. The state of NC set out to control any future flooding. 
The Haw River and the New Hope River were dammed by the Army Corps of Engineers and the Lake filled by 1983.
During rain events, as the lake fills with waters from further inland and the rains above, the lake spreads out and floods it’s shoreline.
Better the shoreline gets flooded and not the downstream cities and towns.
Once enough drainage has occurred east and south of us, the Army Corps will open the gates of the dam and begin letting the extra water out.

Coffee is grumpy! Nothing about the lake looks right to her at all, but both she and HC are within sight of their parents.

The red arrow is pointing at where I was standing, against the trunk of the tree, yesterday afternoon about 3:30 PM.  
As you can see the lake has traveled well in land (probably 30+ feet) – I took this photo today at about 9:30 AM.
BTW the mirror reflection makes my eyes cross when I look at it!
This tiny least sandpiper has walked down about 4 feet on one of the concrete ramps where he reached water.
Normally he would have had about 4 times that much walkway.
Notice all the debris that is already washing up against the ramp.
This pair of critters seem very happy for the extra living room…
How can there be a day at the lake without a squirrel stretched out at a full run past the top of one of the flooding ramps?!

By Jordan Lake Neighborhood, 7 photos, 03/09/2017

Petruchio returning to the First Nest after pushing an osprey back to the east side of the cove.

A beaver on an early morning swim back towards his dam.

This mallard drake was traveling so fast with his hen, that I missed getting her in the photo.

A ring-billed gull with a mouthful of fish fresh caught on the surface of the lake.

Wood duck drake starting to glow with his breeding colors.

In the winter you can find two varieties of kinglets at the lake.

This is a golden-crowned kinglet pouting at me.

Here is the other kinglet.  A ruby-crowned kinglet popping his ruby-crown at me when I startled him.