A Young Cooper's Hawk Canvas Print

I photographed this hawk right outside Terra Ceia State Park near Bradenton, Florida. According to Wikipedia, Cooper's hawk was formally described by the French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte in 1828 from a specimen collected near Bordentown, New Jersey. He coined the binomial name Falco cooperii.[10] The specific epithet and the common name were chosen to honour the naturalist William Cooper, one of the founders of the New York Lyceum of Natural History (later the New York Academy of Sciences) in New York.

I love to tell stories. About twenty years ago I had my first freelance travel article accepted by a magazine. Much to my surprise, the magazine expected photos along with words. I had not taken any during the preliminary work for my article. I drove back to the site and took the photos for the article with my little Olympus digital camera. The article was published with those very amateur photos. In time, I bought an Olympus OMD-EM5, a great camera for nature and travel photographers and discovered that I enjoyed telling stories with pictures more than I did with words. The last twenty year have been an incredibly exciting time as resources for photographers have exploded. I have been lucky enough to have some great teachers along the way...