It's just a bird, why the ecstasy?

Adult male Goshawk, N Apennines, 3.vi.18.
Long wings, distinct and narrow hand, 
faint primary barring, shortish tail
with well-rounded end.

As rather forlornly recounted in the previous post, during a short visit to the valley in the northern Apennines in mid-March this year I found no evidence of the presence of Goshawks around their usual nest site.  I arrived for a longer stay on 23 May.  Until yesterday (3 June) there had been no new evidence and I was trying to get accustomed to the absence of a nesting pair and apparently of any Goshawks at all.

Yesterday - a blissful day - I got really impossibly lucky.  I was in the right place at the right time for a close encounter with an adult male Goshawk.  On my way up to the high landslip scar watchpoint, past the nesting woods, I heard a short call that had a certain Goshawk flavour but which I dismissed as perhaps a Jay mimic or conceivably a Sparrowhawk or even a misheard alarming blackbird.  I didn't dare hope there was a Gos in the area!  About mid-morning, after just a couple of hours scanning the sky and ridgelines,  I looked up from putting something away in my pack and there was a large hawk climbing straight towards me from the woods below and already close.  Big.  Beautiful close-barred grey breast.  Glaring white undertail coverts like jet trails.  Moving fast with little effort.  Surely a Goshawk?  The bird circled over my position, apparently without seeing me directly below, then circled close around the open rocks of the upper scar area, then over the woods along the higher edge, and, quite distant now, after several more soaring circles it vanished behind trees and rocks at my back.

A stunning and ecstatic encounter, perhaps even more dramatic than the meeting related in the post on 27 April last year.   For sure an adult male Goshawk, and possibly the very male that has nested here in recent seasons.  About half an hour later a Goshawk floated low and close overhead from somewhere behind me, crossed the top of the open landslip area, and after a couple of slow deep wingbeats glided toward the trees that run along the highest edge of the scar.  Closer rocks and trees again hid my view of exactly where it went but I was waiting patiently for a possible further flight view when I half turned to my left and saw a Goshawk sitting on a high bare branch!  The movement I made to raise my binoculars must have alarmed him because when I looked through them toward the branch he was gone.

Adult male Goshawk, N Apennines, 3.vi.18

Slowly coming down from the high of the morning events, it took me a while to start wondering if my first assumption - that the male is not breeding this season but simply resident in his usual territory - was correct.  This assumption is based largely on the complete absence of any of the usual calling between nesting adults, associated with food provisioning or nest security.  I've heard no such vocalisations from the specific nest woods or from anywhere else in the valley within earshot.  His seemingly 'relaxed' demeanour yesterday, lacking the urgency that often characterises flights during nest-provisioning (and I have never seen a Gos perched high in an exposed treetop before), was consistent with this assumption.  But  the startling semi-flared white undertail coverts made me wonder if he has an alternative nest location somewhere in the valley.  For some reason, and I'm not at all sure if this is well-founded, I had the notion that the male only showed prominent coverts when breeding.  Today, his were not flared out to the maximum extent but were not tucked away either.  Perhaps more clues will emerge if I'm lucky enough to have further close contact.