HELP! What was I seeing

I love to see and watch bird, but would never call my self a birdwatcher.so my knowledge is limited. But I saw something the other day that I just didn't know what it was. SETUP: SE Michigan/ Oct 26 open farmland area. OBSERVATION: I saw a spiral of soaring birds from 100' up to 300' high in an almost perfect column. This consisted of 50-75 birds. From this column was a flight of birds peeling off this column and flying southwest. This flock spread for at least 2 miles and consisted of 200-300 birds. The birds were dark (due to distance and back lighting) but were smaller than a vulture and bigger than a crow. I am assumming that it was a migration flock, but I just don't know what species of bird they were. I can say that in the field they were flying over is some type of carion. I saw a Bald Eagle on this two days before right near the spiral. I have made some searches on the net and can tell you this about the birds. Closed wing tips (not open like a crow or raven) and a definite tail as a hawk would have. Any help with what I saw would be appreciated.

Thanks Kent

Geese?

Yep, migrating birds of prey. The size and timing fits Red-tailed Hawk as well as anything; other migratory hawks like Broad-winged Hawk migrate earlier and would have been long gone from MI.

Resin

Hi 3G - cross-posted! Sorry, not geese, they only use direct flapping flight, not soaring in a column ("kettle") like this

Resin

ah...sorry, I misunderstood "column".

Thanks Resin.. Wasn't sure what I was seeing, just know it was cool.