HOLY CRAP!
So, so, so, so, I have a I story, I have a story I need to tell.
So, so, I get out of tutoring after this guy I had to kick out (the room was unmonitored, so I had to kick everybody out and lock it up or whatever happens is on me) took his sweet ass time getting all his crap together to leave and made me miss my bus. So I'm taking my time, I walk out on the upstairs portion of the lunch area between the main building and the one I was in and there are people lining the balcony railing and all talking to each other (which is weird because that never happens). So, I'm kind of perturbed and just like "meh" so I start down the stairs and as I glance over to look out on the grassy field and the blooming trees separating the campus from the road, I look into one of the trees and who is sitting his fluffed-out ass there?

A red tailed hawk.

Yes, I just said, that in the middle of the city, on a college campus, there was a red tailed hawk chillin in a little tree next to the main building. So of course, a smile instantly lights up my face and I pause on the stairs, maybe eight feet from this gorgeous guy who is occasionally hoping branches and looking around and watch him. Not afraid, just happy. GORGEOUS guy, vibrant, full dark plumage, clear markings, wonderful. So, I figured I'd leave him alone and not make him any more nervous than he looked from all the other congregation of people that had gathered to watch. I start giving him a wide berth (although I was the only one willing to walk as close to that tree as I did) and then I look down at one of the hexagonal picnic tables I was coming close to and WHAT THE FUCK THERE'S ANOTHER ONE CHILLING ON THE EDGE OF THE TABLE!!! Can it get an better?! So this one has much lighter and much more brown plumage, but it was very very fluffy (it was abnormal cold to today, 40-30 farenheit), so I'm not sure whether she was his mate, or whether that was an older chick that had begun to fly around some. It seems too early for it to be a chick so I assumed she was his mate. But DAMN she was huge, HUGE! Both of them were huge! You see pictures and hear measurements and you think you know how big they'll be but then they're HUGE!
Anyway, I stop in my tracks and back up, because she's stopped her chirping (which is funny, because it sounds nothing like you'd think a badass bird of prey is supposed to sound like) and she's staring at me. But as soon as I stop moving and then just stand there next to the hedge (where some sparrows are FREAKING OUT and refusing to come out) then she goes back to staring up at him and continuing her incessant chirping. And then, what I least expected... You know how in stock footage and movies and all that you hear that token "bird of prey" piercing cry. Yeah, he looked down at her and did it, exactly like that, REALLY loud, and she shut up for a second, and he went back to hopping branches and picking at bark.
Which almost makes me wonder if they were looking for a nesting site. Campus would never let it happen, they try and restrict the bird of prey population to either the tall buildings down town, or the arboretum owned by UK. I already know there are some nesting pairs over there... Maybe the population has gotten too big and the chicks are trying to expand to fresh territory.
Anyway, she set up to chirping again, and I kept watching, and he cried back at her now and then and she chirped and he hoped around. And eventually he hoped over so he was almost directly over her, and I had a decent opening to walk around the tree in the grass to get back on track toward the third building the bus stops next to. So I scooted around (because one can only stand there and oggle some raptors before so long before they might get suspicious, or they leave). I stopped again with the group of people standing on the side walk much farther away than I was, and watched them some more. And just before I left, the male hopped off the branch, dropped down, opened his wings to skim the ground, just inches away from it, and then sail back up to a white blooming dog wood tree closer to the road.

Gorgeous.

So, I left, and it was good times, and I was happy.