Around 11:00 am this morning (Feb 14) I made a loop through Oak Hill Cemetery here in Kingsport to see if perhaps a Merlin had wandered in as one did this time of year in 2004. As I pulled up into the area where the Merlin was in 2004 I noticed a raptor circling high overhead in a thermal. My first reaction was that it was a juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk. A rich, buff color underneath; a broad body and tail slightly long for a buteo...a looking a bit like a large accipiter. I jumped out of the car to get my binocs on the bird. He was very high and far away, but in pretty good light. The two characteristics that stood out to me immediately the most were the bulky body; huge, puffy white undertail coverts; and a broad, slightly elongated tail. I tried hard, but just could not see an eye stripe...it was just too far away...but it had a large head that did not stick out too far in front of the wings. I had decided one thing for certain at this point...it was NOT a Red-shouldered Hawk. I kept watching as it circled higher and higher. After a couple of minutes...it descended over the top of a hill to the north. I drove out of the cemetery and tried to get over to where I thought the bird might be headed, but I did not see it again. If someone held me down and tortured me and forced me to make a call on this bird...if Wallace Coffey took me over to the Mad Greek and ordered a large supreme pizza and sat there in front of me while I was starving to death watching him pig out and told me he would give me a slice if I would only call an id on this bird...I would say it was an immature Goshawk. I've had this same problem of seeing a large accipiter and getting pretty good looks, but just not enough to be able to absolutely say Cooper's or Goshawk a couple of times during my birding lifetime. I have in my notes that Rick Knight, Tom Laughlin, and myself (I remember it well) stood at Carver's Gap on September 1, 1996, and watched a large acciptier fly by with a smaller Broad-winged Hawk diving on it and still couldn't call it for sure, although it almost certainly could not be anything else. The bird didn't look like he was leaving the area when he flew over the hill so I'll go back and check again after lunch before I go to work. Rick Rick Phillips Kingsport, Tennessee