Catfish are scaleless and he may be showing signs of burning from the meds you have used. Scaleless fish are very sensitive to meds and you can burn them if you are not careful. I would give him a dose of stress coat to sooth the skin and just let him be in some clean water and see if that does not heal the welts.

The first egg hatch is expected any day now. They say it takes about 24 hours from the first pip to actual hatch. Claire

Feather, I'm also into photography. (Altho you can't tell it by the photos I am posting on this forum!! LOL) I just got a new zoom lens and I'm learning how to use it now. I hope to get lots of GOOD photos of birds, someday soon! I'm sorry you suffer from carpal tunnel. I have it too, but mildly enough that I can still draw. I'm planning on doing some bird drawings with graphite pencil, colored pencil, and water color. Those are my mediums of choice these days (I gave up oils and acrylics years ago). Did you do your artwork from photos or just from memory? I have to have a model or photo or I can't seem to get things right and I doubt that I can get a bird to sit still long enough to draw it! LOL Re: the hawks Thanks so much everyone for your input. I'm just not sure. I have seen photos of juvie red-tailed hawks that had lots of spots on their backs. To me the eyes don't look as hooded as the eyes of a red-shouldered hawk, but I would have to bow to your opinions because I've never seen one in person, just going by the photos I've seen! I'm on the lookout for more hawks...there's just something so cool about the raptors!!

I've also seen hawks around here that look like cooper's but don't sound like them. I tried the sharp shinned and that's not it either. Books and internet need to also start noting juvenile bird calls. I've heard many odd hawk calls and no recordings verrifying ID. Maybe I'm hearing Juvy cooper's hawks too?