Interesting hawk sighting today

While driving down a busy road, at the point where the road passes between two wooded areas, a hawk flew across the road in front of my car at eye level. Fortunately I was going slowly, the speed limit, as I mostly do, even when people tailgate me.

I saw the vivid black and white banded tail of a smallish type hawk of the buteo variety. But what surprised me was the dark and solid black back. So I had the sudden idea that it might have been a zone tailed hawk, although that was unlikely since this is many hundreds of miles from where that uncommon hawk variety is found.

I consulted my bird book at home and realized that it was good old common familiar broad winged hawk, just like the one I often see in the bayou out back! What threw me for a while was the seeing of the hawk from the top down, rather than looking up at it in flight, where the black back is not easy to see.

There's no hidden meaning in this posting. I'm just sharing a good bird watching experience.

Broad winged hawk Buteo platypterus
Zone tailed hawk Buteo albonotatus