Okay, I can't take it anymore. Here's from the editorial from the Times Argus/Rutland Herald today:

The economic crisis appears to have transformed Douglas into the kind of radical conservative that voters rejected at the ballot box in November.

Let's be clear: they endorsed this guy. They always endorse this guy. Every freaking election. They lavish him with praise in their endorsements, then play the role of opponent the rest of the year, and they think that's okay – that they don't look like complete boobs.

And why??? Because its all about posing. It's about trying to look like wise, “nonpartisan” arbiters of truth, which means going with their brains only part of the time, because going with your brains leads you to *gasp* liberalism. That's why on a few hot button issues – particularly economic – they chart out an intellectually uncoordinated “middle road” that often doesn't stand up to scrutiny from either side. On social issues, they go with their guts and brains and generally lean left – and when it comes to making an endorsement for Governor, well – that's their big chance to balance the scales in their eyes, so nobody can tar them with the dreaded liberal bias tag that the professional media is oh so terrified of.

Well, it's bunk, it doesn't work, and no, nobody's impressed when you repeatedly give a leg up to the guy who will work against most of what you editorialize as good and proper the other 364 days out of the year. It just makes you look petty and craven, and trying to pretend that Douglas has somehow “transformed” is a load of crap.

This is Jim Douglas, this has always been Jim Douglas, and everybody who works in or around the capital seems to know that except for the editorial boards of whoever does the endorsements for the Argus and Herald. You own a heaping share of responsibility for heaping this guy on us. Step up and take that responsibility.

H/T Meteor Blades via Daily Kos, for this one.

If you visit this link you’ll see links to various towns across the US, indicating what specific elements have been requested by town mayors for the stimulus package.

In it, they’ve got a link to what is probably the only town in Vermont large enough to participate.  Of course, by this, I mean Athens… wait… Athens?  Sorry.  No.  I mean, of course.  Burlington:

The funding requested from Burlington is large by my own internal standards, but I have no idea how the numbers fit into the grand scheme of things.  Burlington is asking for $145,075,439 in stimulus money, with an eye towards creating 2,736 jobs.  

These range from big ($10,000,000 to fully fund a downtown transit center, creating 240 jobs) to small ($100,000 for two jobs to retrofit the lighting in the parking garage for better energy efficiency).

The whole report is pretty interesting, for those of us who have time to slog through it all.

Well no … those who care about progressive politics, changes in directions and the future of our communities, states and nation lost.

Because most of us voted for Obama.

Here’s a helpful hint to what I’m talking about:

To help allay Republican concerns about the cost, the Senate proposal even scales back President Obama’s signature middle-class tax cut. The Senate plan also creates new tax incentives to encourage Americans to buy homes and cars within the next year.

Republican opponents continued to rail against the stimulus plan on the Senate floor on Saturday, though it appeared they would not have the votes to stop it.

. . .

In his weekly radio and Internet address on Saturday, the president praised the Senate deal and urged quick passage of a final bill.

(may require free registration … Congress Is Divided Over Competing Stimulus Bills, NY Times, 02/07/09)

On the other hand, Wall Street and all those who’ve made a killing off the Democratic supported Republican agenda, you know – the one that’s driven our nation and states broke, will be well protected from any financial loss.

And Obama calls this a good deal.

I was trying to wait six months before coming to a conclusion about an Obama administration, and I’m going to keep trying … but at this stage of the game; judging from what I’ve seen and heard so far; I’m glad I didn’t vote for Obama … we don’t need more radical Democratic supported Republican idiotology running our nation.

After thought: and where’s all the feet to the fire holding? Heard a lot about that, but I’ve seen absolutely zilch. Good thing the “feet to the fire” people kept their ammo dry so they couldn’t use it after the election.

When we first spotted this owl, I thought this was the best look I’d have of it:

I was wrong.

Note #1: all the photographs, save for the one above, are clickable: they lead to larger images which provide details about the photo: settings, configuration etc.  They were all taken with a Sigma 50-500mm zoom mounted on a Pentax K20d.

Note #2: this post disparages some birders, but really it disparages people who don’t think through their actions or behavior when trying to observe birds.  I’ve made enough mistakes myself as a birder that I don’t feel qualified to judge such actions, but I also have the good sense to learn from my mistakes, which I suspect is not the case in the story I reference below.

Note #3: The main part of this diary is all new, referring to yesterday’s adventure in tracking down the Northern Hawk Owl.  After, I will revisit some pieces I wrote about other owls last year.

Sometimes when I go to look for owls, the looks are not good at all.  This, for example:

Is the only Great Horned Owl I’ve ever photographed outside of captivity.  It counts as a life bird (i.e., a bird I’ve never seen or, in my case, photographed, in the wild) but it’s not a very good look.  But you get used to just not having a very good look at some birds.  

I’m going to start the story of this particular bird by saying that this was the third trip I’d taken to photograph a Northern Hawk Owl.  I was at the point where I had started referring to “The Curse of the Northern Hawk Owl.”

The first was to Peru, NY.  I did manage to see the bird, briefly, but was thwarted by other birders, who thought the smart approach was to walk up and down the neighborhood to track it down.  Problem is, this particular owl, didn’t like people and would always retreat into the fields if people got too close.  We’d been warned about this, so we tried to do our birding mostly from inside the car.  Other people did not respect this so much, so my brief glimpse of the bird was distant.

The second attempt to find a Northern Hawk Owl was a few weeks later.  I took a trip to Center Harbor, NH.  There was snow, which made things complicated, but I didn’t realize how complicated.  After a few hours getting there, I got lost and drove around Center Harbor a bit trying to figure out where the bird was going to be.  I finally found Coe Hill Road (its chief location) about two hours later than I expected, but I was all excited.  

That was until I got halfway up the hill.

And got stuck.

I couldn’t get the car to go forward.  At all.

So I eventually figured out how to turn it around (which, on a windy, snowy road, with no idea when the next car is coming from up above, is all sorts of fun, I’ll tell you).  

And then I went home.  Well, first I stopped to eat and, as a consolation prize, photographed a couple hooded mergansers.  I was on the road for nine hours that day.

That was three weeks ago.

Saturday was a different story.

I should note that Northern Hawk Owls are uncommon within their own normal range and that New England is not even part of their range map, but for whatever reason this year, we’ve had quite a few in the area.  They’re called “Hawk Owls” because they tend to fly and hunt more like hawks than owls.  

These are birds known to migrate out of their territory from time to time, but sights like this are still pretty cool.  For me, a birder who’s never seen a Northern Hawk Owl, before this is a real opportunity.

First, a funny story: there were several of us watching this bird from the road, getting a view much like the one above when suddenly we realized there was a decent flock of pine grosbeaks hanging out right behind us.  So of course, all the birders started paying attention to the grosbeaks, because they’re beautiful birds and kind of neat looking.  I got quite a few photos of them:

Then, suddenly, they all flew off:  

Turns out there was a sharp-shinned hawk in the tree with them.  Moved too fast for me to get a photo, but it’s still pretty fun to see them.

But the real treat came after, when we got incredibly close looks at this owl.  

This one, of it looking right at me:

This one, of it perched on a tree, showing a little of its fluffy underside:

And this one (my favorite) of it just looking really awesome:

Thus, the curse of the Northern Hawk Owl, ended in Eden, VT, on a moderately cold Saturday afternoon.

That bird was really worth the trip.

A Photojournal About Owls, reprinted below, was originally posted in August of 2008:

My experience with barred owls is relatively limited, and my experience with them outside of captivity is even smaller.  When I posted about hummingbirds a few days ago, a lot of readers talked about hummingbirds being a sign of good luck.  For me, it’s owls.  These birds are something magnificent.  

Quite some time ago, we learned to be bird transporters for the Vermont Institute of Natural Sciences (VINS).  In addition to its educational work, VINS does raptor rehab.  The first story I have about this started in 2004.

It started with us getting a call to transport an injured owl.  One of the great things about transporting birds is that they will often invite us to watch the intake exam, which means some really great close-up looks at birds.

In this particular case, we brought an owl in and the intake was not good.  The bird had been hit by a car, and there was a lot of damage to its head.  

This is never easy, knowing a bird you had close contact with, no matter how small, is likely to die.  We said our goodbyes to it and let it go, a bit sad for the experience.

A few months later, in February of 2005, we got a call from VINS that was a bit of surprise.  They were ready to release the owl, and wanted to know if we wanted to be the ones to do the release.

Now, let me add some backstory here: work was very complicated at the time.  I’d been doing this contract for only about four months and I had screwed up in a very major way the month before (*very* long story; about 40% my fault and 60% someone else’s but really, all my responsibility, so what the hell) so my supervisor was a bit concerned about things, and needed to go over some stuff with me.  I was supposed to get in touch with her the same day that the release was scheduled, but I really just didn’t hesitate about choosing to do the release.  I told her I needed to take care of something first but would contact her when I got home.  

I doubt everyone understands this, because birds are just not as relevant to most people’s consciousness, because when she found later that I had been out taking care of an owl her response was a bit incredulous, but everything in the long run worked out fine workwise.  They not only renewed my contract the next year, but for the next few years until budget cuts forced them to let me go just last month.  Anyway… so when we got to VINS they let me take a few photos; I was using an old 35mm without a very good lens, but I still managed to get a few decent pics of the experience, which I’m including here.  

We knew exactly where we were going to release the bird.  There was a good spot, not a long distance from where it had originally been found, with an open field surrounded by a treeline.

The procedure was simple– when you get to the spot, put the box down and open it up and wait for the bird to release itself.

This, of course, was more complicated than expected.  The bird wasn’t actually interested in leaving the box.  We thought maybe it was too far away from the trees or that we were too close to it so we went to move the box closer to the treeline.  That’s when the bird decided it was having none of that.  It sprung from the box and flew.  

In a box, bundled up, a Barred Owl looks small.  It’s a little fluffy ball hardly larger than a football.  Close up, with wings spread, it’s incredible, like nothing I’d ever seen before.

The bird flew and landed in a nearby tree.  As far as it was concerned, we were the enemy.  We were something to be feared.  But I understood that, and knew it would want to get away with me as quickly as possible.  But I just felt so good watching it happen.  This bird, this bird with a fatal diagnosis, had not only survived, but had survived to the point of returning to its natural place.  Some of the birds that VINS treats survive, but are unable to hunt on their own but still survive.  They probably have a good life.  They’re well-cared for and fed, and get plenty of food.  They’re used as demonstration animals and probably live longer than the animals in the wild.

But there’s something fierce and primal about these birds that’s lost when they’re used for such purposes.  I still love watching the demos and have great respect for the people who do them, but I prefer my birds in the wild.  

So the feeling that came with releasing this bird was one of immense release and respect.  I wouldn’t have traded that experience for the world.

The above photos are not high quality so I didn’t bother making them clickable to larger sizes, but all the remaining photos are clickable to larger versions from my web site.

Let’s fast forward to 2008.  Last January, at home one evening, I was greeted from outside by the phrase “get your camera and get out here.”  That’s usually worth my while, so I complied and was greeted with a very complicated look at a barred owl that was sitting in the trees.  It wasn’t easy, but I eventually found it and was about to photograph it when it flew off.  

It took a few moments for me to find it again and suddenly, when it perched on a wire, I was able to shoot off a few photographs of it.  This one:

Was the best.  This is, in fact, the only barred owl picture I’ve ever gotten which wasn’t connected to bird rehab in some fashion.

Which brings me to my next story.

We sometimes get some odd calls from VINS.  This particular time, in early May, we got called to deal with a pigeon.  We probably wouldn’t have bothered, but it had been one of those days where we were finding it extremely difficult to get motivated to do anything, so we figured, we’d at least get out of the house.  This time we were delivering the pigeon to the house of a well-known bird rehabilitation expert.  He lived sort of way out in the middle of nowhere, but we’d heard great things about his house and knew we might see some cool birds there.

After a bit of very complicated travels, we managed to locate the person with the pigeon and were able to locate the rehab house (getting lost once on the way to each), but when we got to the rehabber’s house, he asked if we wanted to see the the owl he was working on.  The answer boiled down to “duh.”  When we got to the barn, there was this creature sitting inside the barn:

Fred explained that he had tried to release the bird once before, but it couldn’t fly as well as he’d thought, but he was getting a physical therapist in the next few days to get the bird’s wings back in order again.  It very much looked like it had an injured wing.

Not so much so.  Apparently sometimes Barred owls will hang their wings that way when resting, because the next thing that happened gave us all a start.

Imagine our shock when, in fact, the bird chose that moment to take off.  It happened so fast, it took all of us by surprise.  It flew directly over our heads, out the barn door, and landed in a nearby tree.  If I’d had my camera focused on it when that happened, I’m sure I’d have fallen flat on my back.  Instead, I spotted where it landed and, having much better equipment than the last time this happened, I was able to get a much better photo:

Needless to say, Fred was a bit surprised by this (just as we were), but he was also thrilled; he’d underestimated the bird’s flying ability but it was clearly able to handle itself.  It flew far and fast, fairly quickly.  It was good.  The only disappointment was that he’d scheduled a release in front of a school group for the following week, so that was out (oops).

I’ve got two other photos here, both composites of a few photos.  The first is of Short-eared owls:

The two on the left are of the same bird.  I almost didn’t get a good picture of it because after I spotted the bird, another photographer stepped in front of me to get a photo.  I’m still a little bitter about that, but I managed to work out some pretty good photos regardless.  This was at Parker River Wildlife Refuge in Plum Island, MA.  The one on the right is from the next winter Salisbury Beach, across the river from Plum Island.  The picture up top is also of that same bird from Salisbury beach.

This, on the other hand, is a pair of Snowy Owls, again from Parker River Wildlife Refuge.

[and one more, from last weekend]:

Again, feel free to use this as an open photo and/or birding thread.

A couple final notes:

This is my gallery of owl photos.

Birding New England is the birding blog I’m trying to get off the ground.

I don’t post all my photographs on ‘Kos, ’cause I take a lot of photographs.  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.

This link will get you to an index of all the owl pages on Cornell’s lab of ornithology if you’d like to learn more.

And one last Barred Owl story that I forgot about before:

A friend of ours, whom we met while birding and is a major life-long birder (we’re still novices), told me a great story about a Barred owl.  Here’s the e-mail he sent about it:

Had a barred sitting on my feeder the other night. Today I had a mouse in a trap in the basement so I opened the front door and threw it out hoping the owl might find it. Before it hit the ground the owl came out of nowhere and took it. Now it is sitting near the house waiting for the next handout.