(Because Julie….. they’re too darn beauty-ful!   – promoted by Christian Avard)

I’ve told most of this story before over on ‘Kos, but I have a follow-up at the end with more photos

I will note once again that these photos are all smaller versions of the photos.  Clicking on them gets you to my web site, which gives you details about the camera (all of these were taken with a Pentax K20d), the lens (a Sigma 50-500mm zoom lens, but some used a 1.4x teleconverter) and other settings (film speed, aperture, etc.).  

These photos started on July 9th, with this photo of the mother hummingbird on her nest:

On July 29th, I went back to check the nest again:

Then, a week later, on August 4th, I found out that the babies had hatched, so I checked in again.  I got these photos:

Notice how small the babies are.  Tiny little beaks, rest of face and body not even visible.  The next photos I have of them are only eight days later.  We’ll get to those in a moment.  

Fast forward to August 12th.  I knew the babies would be bigger, but I didn’t realized they’d be this much bigger.  These ones are nearly adult sized, in only eight days.  Here are the babies by themselves:

Notice the spotted necks on these birds.  That’s one of the markers of a juvenile.  Full adult ruby-throated hummingbirds either have a bare neck (females) or bright red (males).  Juveniles can have these spotted necks.  

Here are two more photos, these of the momma feeding her baby:

On August 13th, I returned again to discover that one of the babies had fledged.  That left the one lone hummingbird, still being fed by its mom:

I didn’t make it over on the 14th, but I did manage to swing by on the 15th.  

I missed the last baby leaving the nest by about an hour.  

But they were still hanging out.  I managed to get these photos (and the one in the intro) of them feeding near the house.  I think the first three are of the mother and the last is of one of the babies.  It’s possible that I’m mistaking the mother for one of the babies, but I think that’s a full adult there.

So that’s it.  A nest from laying to hatching to flying off into the distance.  

I will close with a few more photos of a hummingbird from my own yard.  I’m sure this is a ruby-throated hummingbird, but I’m still not used to seeing one with such a dark neck, so it throws me off a bit.  This one popped up while I moving the lawn mower and just landed above me, so I grabbed what I could:

As usual, feel free to treat this as an open photography and/or birding thread and, most of all, enjoy the photos.

If you want weekly (or daily) e-mail alerts when I’ve put new photos on my web site, you can do so via this link.  

Other relevant Ruby-Throated Hummingbird Links:

• Wikipedia;
• Cornell Lab of Ornithology;
• Hummingbirds.net;
• My Hummingbird Gallery

( – promoted by odum)

Never roll out a new product in August they say, but Bush is rolling out new rules for intelligence gathering. Got to get this stuff established on the books before January 2009. We are really going to be left with a different country after Bush is done with it. Traded away so easily, quietly in August as we lament Russia crushing freedom in Georgia and watch the Olympics. If elected Obama will have much to undo or McCain if elected will have much to work with.

More Federal Intelligence Changes Planned:

Quietly unveiled late last month, the proposal is part of a flurry of domestic intelligence changes issued and planned by the Bush administration in its waning months. They include a recent executive order that guides the reorganization of federal spy agencies and a pending Justice Department overhaul of FBI procedures for gathering intelligence and investigating terrorism cases within U.S. borders.

Taken together, critics in Congress and elsewhere say, the moves are intended to lock in policies for Bush’s successor and to enshrine controversial post-Sept. 11 approaches that some say have fed the greatest expansion of executive authority since the Watergate era.

Under the Justice Department proposal for state and local police, published for public comment July 31, law enforcement agencies would be allowed to target groups as well as individuals, and to launch a criminal intelligence investigation based on the suspicion that a target is engaged in terrorism or providing material support to terrorists. They also could share results with a constellation of federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and others in many cases.

Criminal intelligence data starts with sources as basic as public records and the Internet, but also includes law enforcement databases, confidential and undercover sources, and active surveillance.

“If police officers no longer see themselves as engaged in protecting their communities from criminals and instead as domestic intelligence agents working on behalf of the CIA, they will be encouraged to collect more information,”  Michael German (an FBI agent for 16 years )policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said “It turns police officers into spies on behalf of the federal government.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

Matthew Manning, 22, of Northfield, pleaded not guilty to the charge that while dressed as Santa Claus, he threw a cream pie in Douglas' face as the Governor marched in the July 4 parade in Montpelier.

Right after the Great Independence Day Pie Attack there was plenty of disagreement around here about whether he should have done it. Now, Matthew Manning is facing only disorderly conduct charges.

 Read the rest of the story in the Times Argus.

We just passed a little benchmark at GMD: 1,000,000 page views, according to our site meter (which was actually installed a month and a half after the blog launched, so its actually a bit more).

And another, perhaps more significant benchmark passed recently as well. In the last two mentions of GMD in the Vermont press (here and here), you’ll notice that the blog is now mentioned without explanation. No more “liberal blog Green Mountain Daily” or the Democratic oriented website, Green Mountain Daily” or somesuch. Just “Green Mountain Daily,” ’cause they figure people just know what it is, I guess. Cool.

On another note (since this is tagged as an “open thread” and therefore requires no thematic consistency), someone was telling me last week that I’ve been too hard on Seven Days’ Shay Totten of late. So to balance things out, let me first repeat a couple of things I’ve said in recent weeks – one, that he should be applauded for doing more than anyone else in recent months for (finally) raising the profile of the Vermont Yankee issue among folks in the northern part of the state and two, for continuing to do yeoman’s work birddogging the vendetta currently being waged by Jim Douglas and his ANR against all the operations in the Intervale (an issue rife with all kinds of political nastiness that the other reporters really should be picking up on as well).

But to that, let me add that I heartily concur with his taste in novelists, as he recently highlighted my personal favorite in his column. Although I can say first hand that the only people who consider Philip Dick to be their personal favorite are deeply screwed up people (uh-oh… did I just wreck the compliment?).

( – promoted by odum)

Cross-posted from Integral Psychosis

At 5:45 AM on August 15, Beijing time, five pro-Tibet activists unfurled a 375 square-foot banner that read “Free Tibet” in both English and Chinese over a “Beijing 2008 Olympics” billboard in Beijing, just in in front of the State Television’s new headquarters downtown in the Chinese capital.  Institute of Social Ecology Board Member Bianca Bockman and recent UVM graduate Sam Maron were two of the three-member support team that assisted a Canadian woman and a British man who climbed the billboard to drop the banner.  Shortly after it was dropped, large numbers of Chinese police were seen gathering near-by and after about 30 minutes, the five activists were arrested.  Their whereabouts are still unknown at this time.

(I’d post a pic or two of the banner, if someone can remind me how to do so).

Update:[The latest update I’ve seen is that all five are quickly being deported, as has been the case with nearly a dozen other protesters who have staged “pro-Tibet” street theatre and sit-ins throughout the Olympic Games so far…. I for one haven’t seen or heard anything about these protests, but apparently Americans, Canadians, Britons, and Australians are in Beijing in some considerable force protesting; stay tuned for more hopefully]

Voices for Vermont’s Children has the following report:

As economic news gets worse, the state is dealing with a 24 million dollar shortfall of revenues over spending. The response of policy makers has been to take off the table measures such as use of rainy day funds until later in the fiscal year or consideration of additional revenue-raising measures and to make cuts in the existing budget.

Most state agencies (except Public Safety, Education and Corrections) have been asked to submit proposals for distributing a 5 percent reduction. When these kinds of budget issues occur outside the legislative session, the administration submits its recommendations to the Joint Fiscal Committee of the Legislature. This committee has 21 days to respond with alternative strategies or the Governor’s recommendations go into effect. By law, any reduction in funding is supposed to include an impact analysis.

The action alert notes that the budget committee meeting is on Tuesday, August 19th, @9:30 a.m. in Room 10 of the State House in Montpelier.

I won’t be able to make it, but I’m hoping some of us can be there.

For his whole political career, Evan Bayh has been trading on his family name, and his connection to his father, liberal senator Birch Bayh. Now there is a threat that Bayh, who is showing every sign of being Lieberman Lite, is posing a threat to become Obama's vice presidential candidate, and activists don't like it.

I wrote about Bayh two years ago, when he was one of a handful of Democratic senators to support a flag-burning amendment; he lined up with the likes of John McCain, Bill Frist, and George “Macaca” Allen in support of this amendment. He was also one of the cochairs, with Lieberman and McCain of a prowar coalition, although he now claims he doesn't remember that.

Once again, activists are working to stop Obama from making this disastrous choice. Let's hope we can be more successful than we were in the FISA fight.

why is the statement used so often? I’m referring specifically to various claims of being a multi-generational Vermonter.

In another thread (here) the use of this phrase occurred twice in succession, and I pointed out a simple fallacy: in order to be 7th generation Vermonter, one would have to be 140 to 175 years old depending on how many years you want to go with for generation.

In today’s Times Argus (story not posted online yet) this same claim to multi-generational Vermonterism is repeated. “Matthew is an eight-gneration Vermonter who grew up on Scragg Mountain …” (Man pleads not guilty in pie-throwing, Times Argus, 08/15/08).

My whole discussion about this stems from an interest in what people are trying to say, how they say and what they mean to infer in their words. It’s obvious that many people believe a claim to long family ties to Vermont has special meaning, but it’s not so obvious what they are trying to say is so special.

Apparently even bringing this subject up is enough to have opprobrium upon the questioner in the form of troll ratings and attempts to be dismissive (ironically while responding to the questioner’s posts).

I think laying claim to being a multi-generational Vermonter and that having any import in issues of discussion is meaningless, trite even.

What do you think?

Thanks to all of our efforts, as well as irreversible demographic and cultural shifts, today’s Vermont has become a solidly blue state. This year, Sen. Obama will cruise to easy victories here. That’s why committed Democrats and liberal Vermonters should consider volunteering in neighboring New Hampshire for the Obama campaign. With about 80 days to go before November 4, every possible helping hand in the Granite state could contribute to a necessary and crucial victory there.

As canvassing operations commence in earnest over the next few weeks, every volunteer willing to spend a day or two–preferrably weekends–going door-to-door in key neighborhoods, either persuading voters or reminding them to go to the polls would be greatly appreciated.

There are already hundreds of Obama volunteers working in New Hampshire, a state that as you surely know, is crucial to our campaign. You might think that your assistance is not needed, or would be superfluous. That is simply not true. Despite New Hampshire’s recent Democratic leanings, there are many obstacles remaining in this ancestrally Republican state that contains a staunchly anti-tax (thus, conservative contigent) base as well as many remaining Clinton holdouts who are not yet willing to declare support for our nominee.  

If you cannot make it to nearby New Hampshire, especially places like Hanover/Lebanon, Keene, Concord, or Manchester, you should consider buying Obama merchandise from his online store, and selling it at a higher price in a nearby Obama-friendly neighborhood. You can contribute your profit as a donation to the campaign. Selling buttons and bumper stickers on a street corner in Brattleboro, I have raised about $1,000 over the past week. Money, is after all, as important as votes in a presidential campaign. Phonebanking from home is also a valuable pursuit, of course.

The challenges are certainly great. Only with drive and energy can we overcome them. You don’t want to wake up the morning of November 5 contemplating four more years of Bush-McCain policy. Now is the time to act.  

Okay, a lot of well-meaning people have starting asking me why I haven’t done what most of the other blogs that are sending folks to Denver seem to be doing – put up a PayPal button to enable readers to contribute to the effort. After all, it aint cheap, and room/board is clearly a premium. JD & I are making it work, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was a strain (and Christian is going too, of course, but under the auspices of the Huffington Post, and I don’t know if they’re helping him get there or not…).

There are two reasons I haven’t. One, it wasn’t that long ago that so many of you pitched in to get me a laptop for my birthday, which was really, really generous and really appreciated. But two – well, its election season for criminy’s sake. If you’ve got money to give to something, give it to a candidate who needs it to win.

I still feel that way, but I have become convinced that there are still people who would actually like to help us get there, and that I should shut up and be grateful. Also, there’s JD (and maybe Christian?) both of whom have kept their mouths shut about this, but may be quietly wondering why it is that other blog admins are going to their communities for help, but that loser odum guy has some weird hang-up about it…

So, I’m putting up a PayPal contribution button, so that folks who want to help offset the costs of the Denver adventure can – and with all of our great, great thanks. Any money raised will be divided between the the lot of us who are going to try to limit the financial hemorrhaging and make the experience a bit less scary. It’s a lot to ask for, but help would be appreciated (but for heavens sake, if its this or a campaign contribution to a worthy candidate, please give to the candidate!)

Button will live on the right side up top.