rsync - Jan 2009 - rsync 3.0.4, Mac OS X 10.5 and NFS: ._ files not copied?

Hello - I am having trouble getting getting rsync to work - or  
atleast, work cleanly.  I have looked and looked, but have found no  
one with similar problems.  So here I am: I appreciate any tips you  
might have, and apologize if I missed something obvious.


Here is the setup:

rsync host:
iMac running Mac OS X 10.5.6
rsync  version 3.0.4  protocol version 30
Capabilities:
     64-bit files, 32-bit inums, 32-bit timestamps, 64-bit long ints,
     socketpairs, hardlinks, symlinks, IPv6, batchfiles, inplace,
     append, ACLs, xattrs, iconv, symtimes, file-flags

Invocation:
sudo $RSYNC -aNHAXx --protect-args --crtimes --fileflags --force- 
change --rsync-path="$RSYNC" \
   --exclude-from backup_excludes.txt $* $SOURCE $DESTINATION

Source: Iomega NAS sharing via NFS

Destination: USB drive with HFS filesystem, directly attached


When I try to run rsync on the iMac, with the NFS mount as the source  
and the USB mount as the destination I get errors of this form:

rsync: get_xattr_names: llistxattr("Cochineal/Images/iPhoto Library/ 
Data/2006/Roll 56/._DSC_5186a.jpg",1024) failed: Operation not  
permitted (1)

for every file.  No ._ files are copied - is this because the  
destination is an HFS filesystem and therefore supports resource  
forks?  Then what is the error?  It certainly looks like a read error  
rather than a write error - can I not read xattrs from NFS mounts?

Finally I get:

rsync error: some files/attrs were not transferred (see previous  
errors) (code 23) at main.c(1040) [sender=3.0.4]


I have tried using bbouncer just to test my rsync setup - it works  
perfectly.  But it cannot test an NFS source.


After a complete run, the source and destination are similar in size,  
but without any output from rsync (other than errors), I am having  
trouble knowing that everything was copied correctly - i.e. metadata  
preserved.


I appreciate any help you might be able to offer!

Bart