To Lee's Cliff.

March 15. 

A hen-hawk sails away from the wood southward. 
These hawks, as usual, began to be common about the first of March, showing that they were returning from their winter quarters.

I get a very fair sight of it sailing overhead. What a perfectly regular and neat outline it presents! An easily recognized figure anywhere. How neat and all compact this hawk! Its wings and body are all one piece, the wings apparently the greater part, while its little body is a mere fullness hung between its wings as it soars higher.

Some, seeing and admiring the neat figure of the hawk sailing two or three hundred feet above their heads, wish to get nearer and hold it in their hands, not realizing that they can see it best at this distance, better now, perhaps, than ever they will again.

H.D.Thoreau, Journal, March 15, 1860

These hawks, as usual, began to be common about the first of March, showing that they were returning from their winter quarters. . . . What a perfectly regular and neat outline it presents! An easily recognized figure anywhere. See March 23, 1859 (“[W]e saw a hen-hawk perch on the topmost plume of one of the tall pines at the head of the meadow. Soon another appeared, probably its mate, but we looked in vain for a nest there. It was a fine sight, their soaring above our heads, presenting a perfect outline and, as they came round, showing their rust-colored tails with a whitish rump, or, as they sailed away from us, that slight teetering or quivering motion of their dark-tipped wings seen edgewise, now on this side, now that, by which they balanced and directed themselves.”) 

What HDT calls the “hen-hawk” is the red-tailed hawk. ~ zphx