sunday buteo

So on Sunday morning, I am jogging in the park again (wearing my glasses for once so I can tell when the large forms looming before me are trees and when they are large middle-aged karate practicers who think they've met me before). It's a beautiful morning, and I see quite a few waterfowl there, including those dang COOTS, bunches of MALLARDS and several AMERICAN BLACK DUCKS. Jogging, jogging, jogging (a brief word about the way I particularly do this: it's more of a lope. You might say that I run the way McDonald's makes salad--we've both been at it a long time, but never gracefully, never skilfully, and always with great internal protest and self-doubt).
So there aren't many other birds about, and I jog across the road from the Lagoon to the path along the Prairie River, and my cellphone vibrates in my Velcro pocket. It's S, wanting to know where he should pull in to pick me up. I tell him to meet me at the Field House parking lot, and figure I can probably loop the River path in the time it'll take for him to get there. I sign off, put the phone in my pocket, and across my line of sight flies a raptor, most likely a buteo. I approach the tree it has lighted on, and yes, it's a buteo, and it's twelve feet away from me. About the size of a large crow. Really beautiful, turning its head 180 degrees to search for food. These birds are absolutely fearless, it's awesome.
I've since identified the bird as a BROAD-WINGED HAWK. And found a new psychological reason for birding: it gets you out to exercise!