BBC Wildife Artist of the Year 2012 - Finalist

Last year in early May our exciting visit to 'The Biggest Week in American Birding' at and around Magee Marsh in Ohio was made even more exciting when I received an email saying that I was a finalist in the 'International Artists' category for BBC's Wildlife Magazine Wildlife Artist of the Year. There was a bounce in my step as I lugged all my birding and sketching gear around Magee Marsh!
I had noticed that many people had announced their finalist status on their web sites. But I didn't want to jinx a good thing, nor come afoul of an etiquette I might not be familiar with, so I didn't announce my finalist status online until the final judging date was long passed and I hadn't heard from BBC. At that point I was happy to advertise that I'd been named a finalist.
This morning I got another surprise email - I'm a finalist again in the International Artist category! If you do a quick web search you'll see that a number of others have been as well, somewhere over 100, and many have announced it. So I'm less hesitant this year to say that I'm again a finalist, this time for one of my favorite linocuts, 'Ten Terns', seen above. I think it represents me fairly well as an artist.
Final judging will be this week. I'm hoping for the best. Here is a link to the 2011 winners, complete with their work. By the way this has been a good week for 'Ten Terns'. It's also featured in Wildlife Art Journal's Gallery of the Commons. At the moment this article is available to everyone but it may change back to being available only to subscribers at some time.