Jordan Lake. Single bright white down feather cast into the air as a black vulture preens. Sometimes the only picture of a vulture we carry in our minds is that of a vulture during its meal of carrion. Yet, like bald eagles or African lions who become a mess during a meal, vultures also soon cleanse themselves. I would not want to live in a world without vultures and their necessary task of helping to clean our environment.
Jordan Lake. Let’s step aside from all of the flood information and enjoy for a moment these white-tailed deer bucks. I was sitting on the riprap talking with a brand new friend when he exclaimed oh look there’s some deer. Wow! There the bucks stood, antlers still enclosed in velvet. A rather nice bright aside from all of the flood concerns!
OK! Hang in here with me and the fog. The clip shows some of the peculiarities you can run into with fog and a camera. I was at the dam before sunrise this morning. Really wanted to show to all of you the incredible flow of the Haw River and maybe, just maybe a sunrise too. Fog! The river was much warmer than the air above it and so fog was scattered everywhere. Cameras don’t like to try to focus a video through fog. One thing to take a shot of fog hanging in the trees or being still on the lake … another thing totally when you want to track through the fog. Please hang in there with me as I try to show you the fog, the river thundering out of the tailrace and across the fishing pier, and just maybe a snippet of the sunrise. Thanks for putting up with me.
Jordan Lake. This is the Jordan Dam tailrace this morning. The Army Corps of Engineers opened the dam gates and are letting the Haw River head on down stream. About 3 miles down stream the Haw River comes together with the Deep River and they then together become the Cape Fear River. It appears that it will be at least the end of next week or longer before boat ramps, fishing areas, camping sites, those kind of places around the lake will be open. It takes a while to move that much water out of the lake and down to the ocean.
Jordan Lake. No, that is not tangled up twine left by a careless person. Those yellow orange strands belong to the dodder plant. Dodders are parasitic plants. They start off with roots in the ground but soon lose those roots because along those thin strands are developed sucking roots. Those sucking roots actually penetrate their host plant and draw out the nutrients that the dodder needs. Sometimes dodder is a problem as in blueberry fields. Sometimes it is not. But it is a curiosity and I thought y’all might like to see another kind of wildflower … a parasitic plant that happens to be in the morning glory family. Very interesting isn’t it.
You can see “great blue heron vignette” and the rest of my gallery at http://docellensnaturephotography.com/
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