Western MD is thick with em. And they are HUGE. One time I was out putting on the 1st green and saw this big shadow cross my path. I look up and there's this bird with about a 7ft wingspan like 20 ft overhead.

Another golden eagle, I popped over a sharp rise driving, and almost took the bird right in the windshield, good thing he was flashing across the road at high speed and got out of the way.

Hawks of all sorts, innumerable. Owls, too -- though they're almost invisible in the dusk you hear em all the time. I did once see a great horned owl perching on my neighbor's roof, but only once.

We've gotta be a raptor fly-way. When I go off to Shenandoah or Mt Rogers or Dolly Sods looking for wilderness, I don't see half the raptors I see in my back yard. The mice, squirrels, and other local rodents have a permanent nervous tic. We also don't let our small chihuahuas go out in the yard unsupervised -- the eagles are circling and waiting.