First post introduction

Cooper's Hawk eating a Mouse

I figure its best to get a few introductions done and out of the way. I'm a hobbyist photographer, into nature photography especially. Primarily, I shoot where I live, which is Chicago, the Chicago area, and Northern Illinois.

This blog is going to be a place for me to talk about nature photography, nature in general, wildlife, photography techniques, various natural spaces I like to visit, and pretty much anything slightly related to this topic that comes to mind.

So, why photography? Well, its fun, interesting both technically and creatively, and lets me capture what I see that most people seem to miss. In the city especially, we don't tend to see the wildlife that surrounds us, either because its so common that no one notices it anymore, or because to notice requires you to look a little bit deeper.

Take hawks and falcons. These are more common city residents that most would think, but rarely seen. Peregrins were introduced to the city as a form of pigeon population control and they've taken to city life quite well. Cooper's Hawks are another pigeon hawk. They've been moving in more and more to the city, finding a nitch eating robins and pigeons, and the occassional rodent. Less common, but still present, are the big Red-tailed Hawks.  They eat rodents, squirrels, rats, mice, as well as other small mammals like rabbits.

Ecosystems in general I find fascinating.  They're a giant puzzle that requires every piece to hold its shape. Remove the prey animals, and the predators starve, plants that were normally kept in check by the grazers grow out of control and crowd out other species of plants. Take away the predators and the prey animals reproduce uncontrolled, overpopulate, and overgraze the landscape till most of the plant life is unsustainable. Everything is needed for things to remain in place.

Enough rambling, for now, anyway.