Except that Tom said it was larger than a crow and sharp-shinns are pretty small. Check your field guide again. Red Tails have horizontal bands on the underside of their tails (the red is on top) and a rounded tail. Sharp-shinned have a very squared off tail. (Peterson's Field Guide to Eastern Birds)
My Peterson's guide says -
Red-Tailed Hawk
Light Chest, streaked belly.
Tail with little or no banding.But I do have the 1962 edition - maybe new models have come out with banded tails. :-) There are regional pattern differences but I'd expect a red tail to have have just a single thin brown band along the outer edge of the tail feathers, maybe some other light banding on the tail. Bob's Red Tail shows this:
http://pug.komkon.org/02may/rthawk.html
Tom's hawk has at least three preeminent wide dark bands on the tail.
Considering the size, I'd go with my second choice, Cooper's Hawk.
I took a quick glance at the Backyard Bird Count stats for Viriginia and D.C. - sharp shinned and cooper's hawks pop up in both with equal frequency, though only about half as frequently as red-tails.
- MCC -----
Mark Cassino Photography
Kalamazoo, MI
http://www.markcassino.com
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