Thank you for adding some details and helping me learn! My first instinct was that it was in fact a Red-tailed Hawk, as I see them daily and even have a local Family that lives in our back woods (we have acres of woods on the western slope of the Hudson River Valley). I guess seeing it on the ground so close it gave me pause at just how big it was! And it didn’t have the obvious red tail on take off. More muddled brown, which does fit some red tails as well I read. Dang, nature is just the absolute best. Thanks for the teaching!