I love New England in the Winter.

The crisp air brings birds out that we don’t normally get in warmer months, and keeping the feeders well stocked helps as well.  

Nothing I’ve photographed here took me far from my car– some are from the driveway and some are from driving around in New Hampshire.  Given that the temperatures around here have dropped into the negatives frequently in the last month, it’s good not to be walking very far.  

A quick note: these are all smaller versions of the image; clicking on them gets you to the full-sized version.  

The picture above is of this bird:

When I got home Friday morning, it was in the tree near the feeders.  I spotted it and kind of stalked it while it came out to eat.  If you’re familiar with it at all, you probably know exactly what it is.  If not, it’s a good bird ID exercise.

I’ve never managed to get a Hoary Redpoll at the feeders, but we occasionally get irruptions (bursts of movement into a region of birds not usually in that region) of common redpolls.  There were two at our feeders a few weeks ago– it was a dark and cloudy day and this is the best I did:

We get white-breasted nuthatches throughout the year, but I love photographing them in Winter:

This Barred owl was hanging out on a low branch in New Hampshire, not far from where I live:

And this Barred Owl is sitting outside my window as I type this:

Right now the snow is so high in our driveway that it’s hard to get pictures of the birds on the ground, but fortunately I was able to get this Northern Cardinal:

And this finch, which comes with a quiz: is this a house finch or a purple finch?  Show your work.

But the real treat from Friday was the local Agway in Walpole, NH.  Someone there noticed a small flock of Horned Larks and Snow Buntings in the field out back and started putting seed down every day.  So if you get there at the right time, you can get really close and they’ll just fly in and eat, anywhere from 15′-30′ away.  

I’ve had pictures this nice of Horned Larks before:

But never one this crisp and clear of a Snow Bunting:

And capturing them in flight (mixture of horned larks and snow buntings) is a real treat:

I look for Butings and Larks all winter and couldn’t find the flocks in their usual spots.  Now I know why.  They’re all hanging out at the Agway.

Agway is also a good place to look for Mockingbirds.  I suspect this one is a year-round resident:

And, of course, black-capped chickadees are ubiquitous:

These are from November.  You probably know the species

And a few more older photos of various winter birds from the past few years:

Per Bob Audette / Brattleboro Reformer:

On Friday, the Vermont Department of Health received laboratory data from Yankee that indicated samples collected last week from groundwater monitoring well GZ-23S are contaminated with low levels of tritium.

This, of course, is becoming a familiar refrain.  In case you don’t have your well monitoring score card handy, it should be noted that this is a new detection of tritium in a well that had not been detected before.

So that’s… comforting?

Per Chris Garofolo / Brattleboro Reformer:

Representatives from Associated Industries of Vermont, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Vermont Energy Partnership released an open letter to the governor to express their concern about the closing window of opportunity to allow the PSB to complete its docket on Yankee’s continued operations.

So sure– these groups are free to issue their opinions and present their side of the case, and they’re free to work for or against the continued operations of Vermont Yankee as they see fit.

What they are not, however, free to do is to do so without it being pointed out that Entergy Louisiana, the company that owns Vermont Yankee is a member of the Vermont Energy Partnership.  

So perhaps it can be forgiven this caused my eyebrows to raise just ever so slightly (again, per the Reformer)…

On the same afternoon the letter was released, Yankee owner Entergy Corp. announced that its charitable contributions committee agreed to funding requests from more than 100 local organizations in 2010, totaling more than $300,000.

But, of course, I could just be paranoid.  It’s not as though there could possibly be any sort of coordinated PR campaign between Entergy Louisiana and the Vermont Energy Partnership.  It’s just pure coincidence at work.  

Per VPR / Bob Kinzel:

Governor Peter Shumlin has released a jobs bill that he says will put Vermont in an excellent position to create new employment opportunities in the next year.

The plan calls on several agencies of state government to better coordinate their efforts to expand manufacturing and agricultural-based jobs.

[…]

The plan creates tax credits for companies that hire veterans, it includes an additional million dollars to help dairy farmers diversify their operations and it offers financial incentives to businesses that hire new graduates in various scientific fields. Shumlin is asking lawmakers to pass the bill this year.

The plan is geared towards putting people to work, subsidizing business hiring as opposed to just giving business a tax break.  Even if you don’t fit into the above categories of people, this decreases competition for jobs overall as well.  

It’s about time we had government that wanted to do something beyond complaining about what we can’t afford to do.

Per Governor Shumlin’s FB Feed:

We’ll have new information about Vermont Yankee at our 10:30 a.m. press conference TODAY in the Ceremonial Office.

Update from Twitter:

We are creating a #VT Yankee oversight committee to plan for its closure next year

This is actually something that should have been done years ago– an actual plan for the closing of VY?  It’s about time.

We begin with Media Matters:

Wait for it…

Wait for it…

And…  

Now, far be it for me to critique the general public’s knowledge of geography.  When I was in high school, I had Europe memorized and now I can’t remember what’s where because a good chunk of it as changed.  So if Fox News is incapable of remember where Egypt is, it’s probably because of the recent changes in the area that have caused confusion.  

We can all understand that, right?

Except that Egypt’s existed for thousands and thousands of years.

I know Fox doesn’t care for all that learnin’ stuff that well, so I’m going to explain things from the “Egyptian History!  For Kids! site.

First, they say:

Because it is surrounded by deserts like the Land of Oz, Egypt is pretty hard to invade. So a lot of the time Egypt was at peace. But not all the time….The Egyptians also sometimes fought off invasions from the Libyans to their west, or from the Nubians to their south (and sometimes they lost to these invaders too). Around 1700 BC, there was a big invasion of Hyksos from the north.

1700 BC… that’s like… lots and lots of years ago.  Probably even before I was born.  

So a little more about Egypt:

As in the rest of Africa…

Dude.  Egypt’s in Africa?.  When the &*%@ did that happen?

Of course, as you’ve now probably figured out, that is not, in fact, Egypt that’s labeled as Egypt.  Egypt would be that unlabeled part that’s part of Africa, just to the left of (literally, not figuratively) Syria and Jordan.  The part marked as Egypt?  

That’s just an obscure little country no one would know about called… Iraq.

For what it’s worth– I don’t think this is part of some fiendish plot of some sort on the part of Fox to push some talking point or another.  I think they’ve simply become so fact-averse that they don’t bother checking.  I’m guessing this was done by an Intern (or, possibly, Tom Delay in some prison furlough program) and no one paid enough attention to actually double-check anything.  Which, I believe, illustrates the Fox News motto:

F*$! it, we’ll do it live!

I did some searching on news from the last 24 hours about the “new” leak, which apparently has existed for more than a month, but hasn’t been tested until more recently.  According to this VPR audio clip Shumlin’s said VY is pretty much done.  

Below is some of the news that’s come out since last night.  As usual, this is a trash day thing– Friday nights are often the best time to avoid a politically damaging news cycle, so it’s up to us to keep this in plain sight and not disappear over the weekend.

Brattleboro Reformer / Bob Audette:

Both the NRC and the Vermont Department of Health have expressed concern that the source of the tritiated water may not be the advanced off gas system because GZ-24S is 150 feet north of the AOG’s plume and six wells are located between it and the plume. None of those wells, except GZ-6, have tested positive for tritiated water.

Burlington Free Press / Terri Hallenbeck:

Smith said broken equipment delayed testing between initial indications of tritium in GZ-24 in December and the confirmation of it last week.

WCAX:

This well is near another well where tritium was discovered last week. Both wells are in an area where officials did not expect the contamination from the original leak to have migrated. So inspectors are trying to determine the source of the tritium, including the possibility of a new leak.

VPR / Bob Kinsel:

VPR’s John Dillon says this one, Well No. 6, is near the radioactive waste building on the nuclear plant’s grounds. The latest discovery could mean that a new leak has developed in pipes that Entergy said didn’t exist last year.

VPR / John Dillon:

According to Yankee spokesman Larry Smith, it now turns out that for two weeks in December and January, the plant wasn’t able to test for tritium because of failed equipment.

(Smith) “So therefore the samples were unable to be analyzed until January 11 of 2011 when the machine was repaired. So that accounts for the delay in reporting that.”

(Dillon) State officials say they were surprised the equipment wasn’t working for two weeks. Radiological health chief Bill Irwin says the state Health Department uses similar testing equipment and has ordered a backup device.

(Irwin) “I’m somewhat surprised that Entergy didn’t have a backup and I actually thought that they at one time were obtaining a backup.”

(Dillon) Irwin says he’s looking forward to Yankee’s explanations for why there was such a delay.

Through extensive research (okay, I browsed their web site), I discovered the secret (these people are really not at all subtle) agenda behind the web site “Nation for Marriage,” the organization currently attempting to overturn same-sex marriage in New Hampshire.

Take for example, their primary talking point:

Language to avoid at all costs: “Ban same-sex marriage.” Our base loves this wording. So do supporters of SSM. They know it causes us to lose about ten percentage points in polls. Don’t use it. Say we’re against “redefining marriage” or in favor or “marriage as the union of husband and wife” NEVER “banning same-sex marriage.”

Hey, this is kind of familiar.  Don’t use the word “privatization.”  Use the term “protecting our investment in the future.”  Don’t say “torture” say “coercive methods via which to obtain critical and crucial information.”  Don’t say “quagmire.”  Say “global war on extremist ideologies among those evil evildoers of evil.”  

But that’s not all.  They also have some really nice gems about Why marriage matters.

Now, mind you, many opponents of same-sex marriage will tell you that it’s not about religion, but about an institution that’s been part of our lives for a very long time.  

But here’s something interesting.  Nation for Marriage thinks that you need three different versions of the explanation as to why marriage matters: Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish.

What can we learn from these different approaches to marketing based on religion?

Well, for one thing, Jews apparently like the color green, and are fond of the font Herculanum:

Catholics, on the other hand, clearly like stark color and contrast, and prefer a non Jewy, serif font:

Protestants, however, clearly have no taste at all:

And you know what else we learned?  Cathoics and Protestants, unlike Jews, speak Spanish.

Their website also has some neat tools.  Take for example, their Northeast Project page.  You can use it to e-mail your legislator.  I just used it to send a thank you note to my legislators in Vermont.  Of course, one of my legislators is a friend so I’ll probably see him at the next jam session I go to, so this seems silly.  But that’s Vermont for you.

How about the various threats that same sex marriage poses?  You can read all about them on NOM’s handy little blog.  On their blog you can learn about all sorts of things, like the threat of same-sex marriage being handed down through the courts!

“Unlike the people of California, the people of Iowa have no direct way to get this issue on the ballot so that they can take marriage back from the courts,” notes Maggie Gallagher, president of NOM. “Once again the most undemocratic branch of government is being used to advance an agenda the majority of Americans reject. Marriage means a husband and wife. That’s not discrimination, that’s common sense.”

Of course, just because they object to it done through the courts doesn’t mean they don’t object to it through the legislature:

“Even in states like Vermont where they are pushing this issue through legislatures, gay marriage advocates are totally unwilling to let the people decide these issues directly,” agreed Brown. “They’ve just about run out of courts willing to radically redefine marriage. The next step for gay marriage advocates will be to use these new laws to push Congress to overturn the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and then use the federal courts to impose gay marriage on all 50 states.”

Now, admittedly, it is indeed a sad day for Vermont (emphasis mine):

But we take heart in knowing that this vote was not representative of what Vermonters understand marriage to be…

Which is interesting, as Vermont, like the rest of the country, seems to be a representative Democracy

The piece continues:

Today is indeed a sad day, but let all of us who understand that marriage is the union of a husband and wife redouble our commitment to ensuring that same-sex marriage does not spread throughout our nation, that religious liberty is protected, and ultimately that marriage is restored in these states as well for the sake of our children and grandchildren.

Hear that, people?  It’s a virus.  Like that HIV thingy!  

But, really, how can you say no to this face?

Have we have no hearts?  Clearly, Christians are under attack from the onslaught of same-sex marriage!

I will note two facts:

1. not only did Vermont’s legislature support same sex marriage, they did it with over 2/3rds support of the legislature;
2. Not only did Vermont’s senate vote to support same sex marriage, a majority of Vermont’s Republican senators voted to support it.

Be sure to thank your legislators, everyone.  They’ll be here all week.

Sidenote: I originally wrote this back in April of 2009, just after Vermont passed legislation supporting same sex marriage.  Since then, they have removed Vermont entirely from their Northeast Project page.  

There was even an attempt to primary some of the Republican who supported same sex marriage and it did not go as planned.  

Apparently, we are unredeemable.

Hurray!

Note: all the photos here are smaller versions.  Clicking on them gets you to a larger one.

This is probably one of the best photos I’ve ever taken:

It took a bit over an hour: 20 minutes each way to get to the orchard, about 10 minutes to set up and then just under 42 minutes to do the shot itself.  Clicking on the image will get you the link with exposure details, film settings, etc., but clicking here will get you a version that’s a bit larger.

I decided to share this photo for a few reasons, but primarily because it’s pretty damned cool.

Funny sidenote: I applied to iStockPhoto the other day– I got rejected, but not badly so– it basically boiled down to “all your photos are the same– we want to see some diversity.”  Since most of what I do is bird photography, I can see their point– I gave them three images, all of birds, all kind of similar.  From my POV, they were very different images- one was of a green heron, another of a savannah sparrow and the third of a magnolia warbler.  

To me, these are strikingly different photos, but I can see how they’d want me to show them diversity of subject matter rather than just diversity of bird.  They asked me to resubmit in a few days with more variety so I’ll be including at least one of the photos from this set, as well as a really nice toad photo I took last summer and I’m not sure if the third one will be birds again or something very different.  

Anyway, live and learn.

This…

is a 7 minute, 22 second exposure.  I used Christmas lights attached to a pole, turning them on and off to create a tunnel pattern. I used to think 7 minutes was a really long exposure.  Not so much now 🙂

Spirals created with laser light pens:

3d spiral effect:

Night sky w/wood factory and traffic:

Plum Island, MA, at night:

                               


                               

And… videos:

I’ve been having fun playing with light in this new way– where I collapse movement of objects into time.  I may do some more of it tonight.

I just want to do a quick recap to mention how damned happy I am to live in Vermont.  

We’ve got legislation pending to end corporate personhood.  We’re finding our way to enacting universal health care.  We’re working to unionize early educators.  We’ve got solid Democratic majorities in both our state house and state legislature.  

We’re the first legislature in the country to enact same-sex marriage and make it stick, an we’re just nowhere near as crazy as New Hampshire.

So I just want to say, Vermont?  You’re Good Enough, You’re Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like You.