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Coddle Creek Reservoirs - a.k.a. Lake Don T. Howell
- To: "'Shantanu Phukan'" <phukan@email.unc.edu>,"Listserv CarolinaBirds" <carolinabirds@duke.edu>
- Subject: Coddle Creek Reservoirs - a.k.a. Lake Don T. Howell
- From: "Tomm Lorenzin" <skytomm@1000plus.com>
- Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 14:06:44 -0500
- Delivered-to: pardo@metalab.unc.edu
- Importance: Normal
- In-reply-to: <BA4B80A6.363%phukan@email.unc.edu>
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
"Just one question for local Charlotte folks: Who on earth was Don T
Howell and why do we have to suffer his name (with its middle initial)
on a lovely lake which already had a perfectly pleasant and very homey
name: Coddle Creek?"
Politics, my dear Shantanu (if I may be so familiar). Simply arcane
politics. And please don't feel left out if you do not understand
American politics - especially SOUTHERN American politics. None of us
sane and honest folk do. <G> As for who DTH is/was... I'll have to
leave that for someone else to answer.
Actually, the "lake" is a reservoir created in the early nineties by the
construction of the dam that you can see from Hwy 73 (Davidson Hwy) just
E of Macedonia Ch. Rd. The reservoir is a municipal/industrial
water-source swelling of the previously lazy Coddle Creek, and was
called Coddle Creek Reservoir.
Cheers!
Tomm "the quinquagenarian thespian" Lorenzin
Mooresville (Lake Norman), NC
skytomm(at)1000plus.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Life is a moderately good play
with a badly written third act.
~Truman Capote
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
visit me @ http://www.1000plus.com/Cataract/
> -----Original Message-----
> From: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
> [mailto:carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu] On Behalf Of
> Shantanu Phukan
> Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 21:19
> To: carolinabirds@duke.edu
> Cc: gyrrlfalcon@hotmail.com
> Subject: Charlotte birding results
>
>
> Dear Carolina (and especially Charlotte) birders:
>
> Besides all of you who responded about Charlotte birding
> sites I also have INS to thank for getting me out of the
> house for a great day of birding which yielded 8 year and two
> state birds. And any day that yields two state birds is just fine.
>
> Recently I discovered (just as I was getting ready to plan my
> India trip) that my Alien Registration card was in need of
> its 10 year renewal and that the only INS center in the
> entire state was in Charlotte. Now, a visit to the
> Immigration is never an occasion for joy, but this was as
> close to a joyful visit to the INS as I have ever come. The
> secret: combine it with birding. Hence my query yesterday.
>
> I zoomed out of the house at 5 this morning and hit Lake Don
> T. Howell just as the sun was trying to warm the thin crust
> of ice that had the lake in its grips. I was first in pain
> and then gradually benumbed as I tried focussing on the
> waterfowl, but the GW Teals and Ruddies seemed to be having a
> ball. The great find, however, was this incredible patch of
> brambles by a farm field at the north end of the lake. I have
> never seen a White Crowned Sparrow in N Carolina and was
> thinking that when I do finally see one it will be just
> that--a lone individual mixed in with a flock of White
> Throateds. But no, this patch was bursting at the seams with
> them--all ages and all sexes. In fact, just as I was
> beginning to be sure that Song Sparrows are THE most numerous
> bird around here in the winter along came this battalion of
> White Crowneds and wiped out any such notion. There must have
> been at least 20 White Crowneds that I counted (and probably
> many more in the brush). For once the Songs were outnumbered.
> And the more I pished the more the brambles spewed forth a
> constant stream of White Throateds. I know that people see
> White Throateds in the piedmont but aren't they a relative rarity?
>
> Then to INS, which was miraculously swift. So swift, in fact,
> that I emerged in a shock and stumbled over to Mc Dowell
> Prairie. It was really great to see an emerging grassland and
> I talked to the rangers there who showed me a little pond
> they have created (besides the one already there). It was a
> great, isolated little pond that I imagine will throb to the
> songs of spring peepers in just a few months. Obviously the
> rangers are very busy cutting down the dense hardwood forest
> and opening up the landscape here. I would love to return in
> about three years and see the grassland. There were hundreds
> of Savannah Sparrows here, but the prize for me was a Vesper
> Sparrow which I have also never seen in N carolina. It sat
> and posed and showed me every field mark on itself. This
> brings my N Carolina total to 240. I am creeping up on my
> California state list which will soon be dethroned. Watch out
> Golden State.
>
> Thanks to all who responded. Judy, I have a suggestion. The
> Macedonia Church Road access to lake Don Howell is no longer
> as it is described in the website. In fact the Road does not
> even have a sign on it. From Davidson Highway (exit 55 off of
> I-85) you have to make a right onto something called Gateway
> Drive (which is an entrance to a bleak Industrial Park being
> planned) and then an immediate left onto a little unnamed
> road (which is Macedonia Church Road).
>
> Just one question for local Charlotte folks: Who on earth was
> Don T Howell and why do we have to suffer his name (with its
> middle initial) on a lovely lake which already had a
> perfectly pleasant and very homey name: Coddle Creek?
>
> Shantanu Phukan
>
>
>
>