I use an old Olympus C-740 Ultrazoom. I am impressed with how well it takes pictures, considering I always have it set to auto everything. I am not a photography wiz by any means, and this camera is easy to use and takes good pictures. I say it is old, probably 5 years now we have had it....old as digital cameras go. Thanks everyone for the nice comments. BN

Thanks elly! My nephew has one those huge telephone nikon lens so he wasn't close at all. The female hunted our property every week this winter and got so she'd hide until I started calling in the Stellar Jays to get the peanuts. She'd then know about 10 to 20 stellars would be coming in. She got several til I checked her favorite trees before calling. I call her Lady and she posed for me quite often. I could get as close as just below her tree. She'd wait til I did my morning feeds for the birds and follow me around quietly and always manage to get a jay, junco or starling. I'd often see her sneeking in to hide as I got out my supplies. Here is a link that might be useful: sharp-shinned hawk cropped 2

Luc, you need to congratulate the birds for being so magnificent. We were fortunate to have them come so close and sit still long enough for us to get these pictures. We have wanted to share this tip since we read it but didn't have pictures to show what we meant. The Cooper's coming a few days ago prompted us to share this with our friend and he supplied the juvenile Sharp-shinned. That made it even better. Ruth, we saw your post and didn't comment for lack of pictures as stated above. We are glad you posted your wonderful picture here in profile because it shows the shape of the head more than in your other post and helps to strengthen our argument about head shape. Most of the time they move there head from side to side so you can see the shape. Most people post the pictures of them looking at you which makes this process a little harder to use. Nathan, maybe the shape and streaking are so similar between these species that it is part of the reason there is so much question as to which is which. That is why the shape of the head may be a better way to decide. Our second picture and Ruth's looks like the beak is a continuation of a line in the same plane as the top of the beak. You could almost lay a straightedge across it. The adult and the third picture, that you question, do not look like that. The beak and the head look like two separate curves that meet at an angle. Thank you Rachel, BnB

Thanks JPOB for the input. However, I think if I saw a Kestral I would still be in the yard right now with my mouth wide open given those distinct head markings. This was definately either Coop or SS b/c I got a good look at the tail pattern, the streaked breast area and the yellow legs. Hmm...maybe I need to just dress-up like a song-bird and peck around and see if I get attacked? ;)