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BLOOM TIME: On Tuesday, we did a tour under blue skies that show an abundance of wildflowers blooming. These included Flowering Dogwood, Downy Serviceberry, Mountain Silverbell, Oconee Bell, Canada Violet, Faded Trillium, Vasey’s Trillium, and a new discovery that I learned the ID of the next day with Keith Bradley’s class. This was Sand-myrtle, Kalmia…

LOON TIME! Time to leave us, that is. Spring loon migration is in full swing. On some days in the early predawn you can hear Loons hooting over most of the lower basin. On other days, the lake can be hauntingly quiet, like it was this past Tuesday morning when we saw only 10 or…

Wild for the Child ‍ Misty gray cloud nestles onto Lake Jocassee like a feather blanket, settling pollen onto calm water in clumps thick as pancake batter. Visibility is zero. Four boats head into this mysterious void with no landmarks visible to guide the way. The fourth graders onboard, out for a Jocassee Wild…

‍It’s not unusual to see an occasional small float plane flying over Jocassee as pilots hone their skills, landing and taking off again, but Tuesday was different. Two firefighting planes (possibly Fire Boss Water Scoopers; see link below) made multiple trips throughout the day, carrying ~ 800 gallons of water each trip to help suppress…

Burned ‍ ‍Six months ago, Hurricane Helene stormed up the southern face of the Blue Ridge Escarpment in a swirling fury of wind and rain. In the aftermath of landslides and uprooted trees came light, pouring through canopy gaps, opening the forest floor to new life. This month, spring brings soft green back to…

Pretty Boney They come in pulses. Or so it seems. One day lots of Loons and Bonaparte’s can be seen from the dock, the next day the lake is quiet. I include both birds as their migrations, both fall and spring, seem almost synchronous. The call of the Bonaparte’s (let’s call them Boneys for short)…

Fresh Fern ‍ ‍New coils of Christmas fern push forth into soft spring air which still retains the possibility of early morning frost. By day the fern stems lengthen, baby-tender, hairy as a terrier. One could watch its growth, if one had all day to sit still in a place, and there are worse…

It’s official… The 2025 Jocassee Wild Child program kicked off this week with 7th graders from Gettys Middle School in Pickens County. “The students loved it! They learned about geology, zoology, history, energy, geography, climate and ecology. They experienced it and touched it. Mostly important, they were charged to protect & preserve our beautiful upstate”….

Whippoorwill ‍ It’s near civil twilight, that magical end of day when critters come out, and Mica-the-canine and I are out for one last walk. I need this more than she does. We head west towards a field which dips down into an old farm pond on the Oconee Bell Trail at Devils Fork…

We saw Bob! Bob is the first loon we ever banded, one very cold night in February of 2016. For the nine years that followed, we have seen him each winter, and in the same area of the lake. It’s quite remarkable, really. This year I was losing hope, when, on the second day of…

Big Fat Buds ‍ The Jocassee Gorges inhale winter and exhale spring, and whispers of greenery push out from the dry ground through leaves dampened by a recent trace of rain. It’s March. Wind rolling off the mountains is cold one day and warm the next, and cool again the day after that. Oconee…

Windy afternoons and new birds. It must be the beginning of spring around here. Astronomers may say spring begins in late March but we Jocassee lovers know now is the time. I saw a few small white birds from the dock yesterday, a bit too far out to make a certain id. They looked too…