“I don’t know” if Rick Perry has a fully functioning frontal lobe.  I mean, I’ve never seen it, and if I were to see it, it might be fake.  I have no reason to think otherwise, but…:

Governor, do you believe that President Barack Obama was born in the United States?

I have no reason to think otherwise.

That’s not a definitive, “Yes, I believe he”-

Well, I don’t have a definitive answer, because he’s never seen my birth certificate.

But you’ve seen his.

I don’t know. Have I?

You don’t believe what’s been released?

I don’t know. I had dinner with Donald Trump the other night.

So…

To be fair, I think having dinner with Donald Trump would guarantee a slight lowering of the IQ rate for the next 48 hours, and it’s not like Perry had a lot to spare.

Per WCAX:

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin has named his choice to sit on Vermont Supreme Court.

Shumlin has chosen his own legal counsel, Beth Robinson, for the job.

Robinson has no experience as a judge. She is best known for leading the legal battle to legalize same-sex marriage in Vermont.

Robinson is Shumlin’s first appointee to the 5-member high court. If confirmed by the Legislature, she will replace Justice Denise Johnson who retired from the bench in August.

Per Shumlin’s press release:

“I am proud to appoint Beth Robinson to the Supreme Court,” the Governor said. “Beth’s strong legal background, experience with crafting legislation at the State House and commitment to the equal rights of all Vermonters will make her an exceptional justice on the Vermont Supreme Court. While I am thrilled to see Beth go to the Court and believe her to be the best qualified of an extraordinary pool of candidates, I am also sad to lose Beth as my legal counsel. In addition to depending on Beth’s sound legal advice, it is a pleasure to work with her every day.”

If you have any very conservative friends whose heads you’d like to see explode, this may be the trick:  per The Associated Press:

When Navy Lt. Gary Ross and his partner were searching for a place to get married, they settled on a site in Vermont, in part because the state is in the Eastern time zone.

That way, the two men were able to recite their vows before family and friends at the first possible moment after the formal repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Just after midnight Tuesday, the partners of 11 years were married.

There’s something chilling about living and working in an environment where you have to be completely silent and circumspect about extremely important aspects of your life.  It creates a bitter chill on your world, one which creates unnecessary stress and is a form of psychological violence that can cause damage.  It belongs in the dustbin of history and I’m hoping it stays there.

I’ve been looking to get photos of a Hudsonian Godwit for years now.  

This weekend I succeeded.  

I think this may have to go in an exhibit.

These were taken at Sandy Point, the far end of Plum Island, Massachusetts, just past the end of the Parker River Wildlife Refuge.  Most were taken Sunday, but the bird was visible both Saturday and Sunday, foraging in the sand and water for small worms or eels, sucking them up through its long, upturned beak.

Godwits travel for thousands of miles without a break.  In the US you only get them during migration.  This one was probably stopping off to do a lot of feeding before it continues its trek from the far north to the far end of South America.    Getting to see it this close and in this much detail was a real treat.

The photos here are all smaller versions.  Clicking on them gets you to the larger, more detailed, photos on my web site.

This was one hell of a way to get a new life bird.

Whale watches are usually about the whales.  Last Monday, they were more about other things:

Some of these photos were taken from a boat.  Others were taken at the shoreline:

There are complications that occur when you can no longer see clearly when your eyes are irritated.  Most of this boat ride involved double vision and a lot of annoyance on the part of my eyes.  I anticipated this.  After two days finding myself having problems with the wind at the beach, I knew the boat ride would be complicated.

So loaded up with eye drops, we went on the boat, and it actually turned out okay– I kept one eye closed most of the ride, which was easier than I thought it would be (it’s amazing how quickly you can get used to this sort of thing) and relied primarily on my right eye to track birds and do photography.  It seems to have worked.

I only ever see Bonaparte’s Gulls in the Spring and fall.  This photo, by the way, was taken from a moving boat:

As was this photo of a Northern Gannet:

One thing I’ve learned from some of my limitations over the summer is not to be afraid of playing with camera settings.  I decided I would try maxing my camera out for shutter speed to improve chances at getting good photos from a moving boat.  Most of these were shot in the 1/2000s to 1/4000s range, making for some very nice crisp clear shots, even though I had to sacrifice some quality of photo (I shot a lot of them at ISO 800, which tends to be a bit grainy, but it kind of made it easier to get photos such as these red-necked phalaropes, which were crazy difficult to get given how bouncy the boat was at the moment:

It’s also one of the reasons this Parasitic Jaeger is a little out of focus:

By sacrificing depth of field for shutter speed, not everything worked perfectly, but it paid off for shots like this:

It also paid off for shots of these Greater Shearwaters.  Even with the poor quality of the middle one (not sure what went wrong there, need to work on figuring that out), I was able to capture the freeze frame of the two birds fighting over a piece of meat quite well.  Also, a quick anatomical note– notice the bill on this Greater Shearwater?  It’s got a feature which is common to pelagic (ocean-dwelling) birds.  It’s a tube on the beak which helps it filter saltwater.  I rarely get photos where that particular organ is clearly visible, so I like this first one a bit:

It also gave me some great opportunities to get this Cory’s Shearwater, a bird I’ve only ever seen once before (you’ll notice that the beak on this one is a bit lighter than on the greater– that’s the best way to ID them):

And these Wilson’s Storm-Petrels came out nicely as well:

(Since storm-petrels are about the size of large swallows, I’m always glad to get photos of them that look even remotely clear)

Earlier in the weekend, I got this photo of a Black Skimmer.  It’s only the 2nd time I’ve ever photographed one (the first year was about the same time of year last year)

Around the same spot, I had good looks at common terns:

I also saw, for the first time, Forster’s Terns that morning, but got some really nice looks at them from the boat (once again, that super-high shutter speed paid off):

And a few others– I think two of these are common Terns, but the tail is do deeply forked in one that I suspect it’s something else:

Oh, and did I say something about whales?  We only saw two whales.  One was a Minke, which I didn’t photograph, and one was this Fin Whale:

Not as exciting as Humpbacks, but still nice.

It’s been kind of a long Summer.  The Myasthenia Gravis has been heavily limiting as far as photography goes, but that doesn’t mean I’m without ability and that doesn’t mean I can’t push myself from time to time.  It just means that pushing myself sometimes comes with a short term cost.  

This weekend was kind of worth the work.  

Kind of really worth the work.

All in all, it was three days worth of photography, some of it difficult, some of it ridiculously easy.  Heading down to the beach near low tide can be very effective– small sandpipers will hang out near the shore or in shallow pools to feed.  This Dowitcher, for example:

Was about 30′ away, which is how I got such a nice shot of it.

Snowy Egrets are getting ready to head out, but aren’t quite gone yet:

This Semipalmated Plover was digging in the dirt, and you can still see the remnants on its beak:

Extensive activity is still difficult for me– the more I exhaust myself the more I get double vision so I’ve been avoiding situations in which the photographs might be easier or simpler to work with, but that didn’t work so well this weekend– the beach was blowing in my eyes which irritates them, and there was bright sun which also does irritation.  So most of these photos were done with one eye closed and a lot of hope.  

I think they paid off.

I was hoping to get American Golden Plovers.  I didn’t succeed but I did get such gorgeous sights of Black-Bellied Plovers that I didn’t mind so much:

Similarly, I can’t argue with these shots of a Sanderling feeding on the shore:

Speaking of Sanderlings, you’ll also see a smaller bird, the Semiplamated Sandpiper.  I put a lot of effort into getting this side by side photo where you could see the differences.  Sanderling is lighter and larger:

And here you get the semipalmated next to the larger, and with a darker, greyer, head, white rumped sandpiper:

Other white-rumped sandpipers are here:

And just to confuse things, the western sandpiper looks a hell of a lot like the semipalmated, but with more red on its wings:

The spotted sandpiper, on the other hand, is a bit bigger.  In the Fall, it’s easily identified by the stark white “comma” shape by the front of its wings:

And sometimes you only get to see sandpipers in flight.  This photo contains three of the sandpipers we’ve talked about earlier:

I’ll explain in the comments how to ID them but first I’ll make this a mini advanced birder quiz.  Can any of you ID the three birds in this photo?

I’m not certain about this one: I think this might be a greater and lesser yellowlegs in the same shot, but I’m only about 75% on that.  What do you all think?

Finally, I kind of love this shot: I was photographing a semipalmated sandpiper as it took flight and I figured for practice I’d just try to track it.  Not easy, but fun to do sometimes.  When I looked at the photos later I realized it was pissing off a flock of yellow legs.  I have a series of shots of it flying, flying over them, them getting annoyed, at them calming down again.  This was the apex of it, with maximum proximity to the yellowlegs group, and maximum annoyance on their part:

As usual, these are all smaller versions of the photos.  There are much bigger ones on my web site, and all of them are clickable, getting to the larger shot.  

As usual, feel free to treat this as an open birds and birding thread.  I haven’t been able to bird as much as I’d like lately so I’d love to get vicarious birding pleasure from the rest of you.  What have you been seeing lately?

Sometimes it’s just nice to take a break and get away from home, even if just for a morning.  Yesterday’s trip was relatively uneventful, though if we’d taken the time, it might not have been– some fairly unusual birds were at the refuge but we were slacker birders and just having a mellow day.

And honestly, I’m okay with that.  I didn’t get any particularly unusual birds, but I got some fairly incredible shots of ones I’m familiar with.  This Great Egret, for example, didn’t just make it easy.  It actually flew closer to us and started feeding right by the car while we were grabbing lunch.  

After the fold, lots of photos of that same egret, plus a few others.

Our trip was to Parker River Wildlife Refuge on coastal Massachusetts.  It’s one of our favorite birding spots, and it was a very nice day to be birding the refuge.  

This first bird is a semipalmated sandpiper.  These guys are about 6″ long and tend to move about a bit, so I was glad to see one hanging out close to shore:

This is a Snowy Egret and a Great Egret. (The Snowy is the smaller one).  I’m not sure what happened before we showed up, but the short version is that the Great Egret kept following the Snowy– every time the Snowy would move, a few minutes later the Great would come over and hassle it.  My theory is that the Snowy was better at finding food so the Great just kept waiting for it to find something yummy and then would come over and try to steal it.  Ah… capitalism:

Great Blue Herons are just such beautiful birds:

I thought I was photographing the more common Double-Crested Cormorant, but noticing the distinct white patch on this bird’s chin, I’m fairly certain it’s a Great Cormorant.

The feeding egret: I tried to photograph this bird and it flew off.  Then I went back to eating lunch and it decided to try to grab lunch, too, just right by our car.  So I went back and forth between photographing it and eating my lunch.  I love it when they make it easy:

I live in Vermont, near the New Hampshire border.  I work in both Vermont and New Hampshire, but most of my work is in New Hampshire.  

Though there are Democrats in the office of Governor in both states, the legislature is a highly different situation.  Republicans are a small minority in Vermont.  Between Democrats and Progressives, we have a veto proof majority here, something largely irrelevant when there’s a Democratic governor in place, but very important when there’s a Republican in power, such as when we overrode a veto to enact same sex marriage.

The situation is flipped in New Hampshire.  Republicans hold an overwhelming majority, enough to override vetoes in some cases, and they have been slashing budgets everywhere.  

I shall provide a simple example.

The above image is a Photoshop merge of the two state maps from the 511 road information service.  Specific sites are available for New Hampshire and Vermont.

Notice the difference?  

Vermont’s map is loaded with road closings and updated information.

New Hampshire got hit, too.  Not as badly as Vermont, but I know from various news sources and Facebook updates that there are roads in NH which are closed due to flooding.

I just have no way of getting detailed information.

The road around the corner from my house was closed yesterday afternoon.  It was indicated on the web site shortly after closing and it’s no longer listed there.

I’ve been checking the NH site from time to time hoping that someone would bother providing useful and adequate notifications.  

Not so much so.

My office is open today.  

I’m not complaining.  I love my job.  

The thing is… there are about five different ways I can get there and I have no clue whatsoever as to which of them are best.  I can make guesses, and I’m pretty good at that, but yesterday was amazing in terms of devastation and even though today looks to be okay, things are still in flux and I’m not liking the idea of driving into situations I do not know without clear understanding of where they stand.

Shouldn’t we be… you know… funding this sort of thing?

Been in the garden, photographing very small things:

Two quick things:

(1) these are all smaller versions.  Clicking on them gets to larger versions on my web site.

(2) if you are creeped out by spiders, you might not want to go any further, because this not only includes photos of a very small spider, it’s a very small spider that can jump.  

These were all from our backyard in Southeastern Vermont.  I know little about insects so I’ve no idea if any of these are rare or unusual.  I know that one is invasive, but nothing about the rest.

Ants and Mystery Bugs:

Invasive Japanese Beetle:

Mystery Beetle. A little smaller than the ladybug:

Mystery… something:

Northern Jumping Spider.  Yes, not only is it a spider, but it jumps.  

The first photo is from yesterday.  I was amazed that I was able to find one (possibly the same one) again this morning and get more photos of it, covering the whole body rather than just the peek-a-boo shot from yesterday.

I included a wider view as well so you can see how small this creature is– those buds around it are about 1/4″ long at most:

Tick of some sort.  This looked too large to be a deer tick:

Wasp or Hornet:

So these are the sort of things that happen when I am relaxing over the weekend and let my mind wander.

I decided to try my attempt at a twitter hashtag, #MessagesFromTheFuture, with random thoughts, such as:

Of course, I am no twitter genius.  There are plenty of things I can do that are a lot smarter than this, but at least I’m amusing myself, if no one else.

In the meantime, I am taking pictures.

So this is a close-up of a leaf from our garden.  (No, I do not remember which kind).  Notice the patterning on this leaf.  I’ve been a fan of fractal designs for a couple decades now, and this just kind of blew me away, because it actually matches (or comes very close to) matching one of the fractal designs I used to work with.

I wish I knew where I had put those files– I’d include a matching image here if I had one.  I’m hoping those of you into higher math (you know who you are) will remember this pattern and be able to provide a link to it.  By the way, this is a much smaller version of the photo.  Clicking on it (as with most of these) gets you to a larger version.

Macro work is kind of fascinating for me.  Since I do it outdoors, generally without a tripod, I have to take a great many shots of moving targets to get one just barely in focus. It’s complicated, but fun, and most focal work is manual and takes precision that I tend to lack without the help of an automatic camera.  But still… I sometimes succeed and sometimes come close enough that I’ll go ahead and make it public anyway.   This close up of a jewelweed, which is about the size of my thumb, however, is just kind of perfect:





And I like these Syrphid Flies quite a bit:





These are two of my favorite flowers:





This one came out moderately well:



This bee came out very crisp and clear:





This bug is significantly smaller than the nail on my pinky finger:





And this spider was small enough that I thought it was a speck of dust.  If you are familiar with echinacea flowers, you can get a sense of just how tiny this bug is:

And speaking of spiders…



It’s been a long week.  I’m still learning to live with illness.  I’m doing well, but not great.  There’s a very good chance I’ll need a surgery which will take a month to recover from, but I don’t need it urgently, and can wait until a quieter time.  My vision is mostly good, but not great, and my mood varies.

Though I am finding the vision to be improving, the speech problems I’m experiencing are of extreme frustration to me.  I like to talk.  I get up and talk in front of people comfortably and without hesitation and the vast majority of what I do for a living involves talking to people.

I know that if this is taken from me, I will learn to work with it, but it is, in some ways, more difficult than the double vision, if for no other reason than that it is lingering while the double vision for the most part is not that persistent an issue any longer.

But I will manage, and find a way through.  And the surgery will be brutal and unpleasant, but I will survive it and it will improve things, at least for a time.  

And in the meantime, I find humor in small things, amusing myself on twitter, taking pictures that I kind of love, getting ready for an exhibit next Spring, and just mostly enjoying life despite the moments of fairly extreme frustration.