Any chance it could have been a first-year male summer tanager?
I'm basing that wild guess on the picture in the National Geographic field
guide.

At Harford Country Airport in Churchville on Saturday, a red-shouldered hawk
circled above the field. On Sunday, I saw a shoulder and two red-tailed
hawks, one of which called to the other birds. Shortly afterwards I spotted
a kestrel, also soaring, and a black vulture. On the way home I saw a great
egret
in the middle of the Aldino Sod Farm, which is just across MD 156 from
the airport, where I fly gliders with the Atlantic Soaring Club.

Also on Sunday I saw three ospreys having fish for lunch on red marker #8
in the Northeast River,
but saw no ospreys on any of the other buoy/marker nests. Bald eagles,
turkey vultures,
ospreys, and great blue herons were ridge soaring the cliff near red buoy #2.
Is a small tern with almost no tail typically a young Forster's tern?

I'm new to this list, though I've been lurking for a few weeks.
I'm still pretty much a beginner, probably because I am not a morning person
and so I miss many wonderful field trips. I belong to the Cecil bird club and
I hawk watch at Turkey Point.


--Pat

Pat Valdata | 
"The natural function of the wing is to soar upwards
and carry that which is heavy up to the place where dwells the race of gods.
More than any other thing that pertains to the body
it partakes of the nature of the divine." --Plato