Wild Facts About The Bald Eagle

How To Find Bald Eagles

Look for Bald Eagles along lakes, rivers, and deep marshes and estuaries.
- Bald Eagles winter along the coasts and large rivers of much of the United States (Bull and Farrand, Jr. 1994).
Sub-adult Bald Eagles may be found near landfills, using them as both a food source and a source of heat from decomposition (Elliott et al. 2006, https://doi.org/10.1676/04-126.1).

What Do Bald Eagles Look Like?

Bald Eagles are huge birds, with wingspans of 6 – 7 feet (1.8 – 2.3 m).
- Females are slightly larger than males.
- Of birds found in the eastern United States, only the Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) matches the Bald Eagle’s wing span.
Both adults and juvenile birds have:
- Massive, heavy, hooked beaks,
- Bright orange feet tipped with long, thick, curved, black claws,
- Long wings,
- Piercing yellow eyes with black pupils.

Bald Eagle. Haliaeetus leucocephalus. Bird. Photograph taken and design created by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved. — Bald Eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus Bird Photograph taken and design created by the author Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder All rights reserved

Adult Bald Eagle Appearance

Adult Bald Eagles are distinctive and unmistakable as any other bird.
Both sexes look similar and have:
- Solid, black-brown body and wing feathers,
- Bright white head, neck, and tail feathers,
- Bright yellow beaks.
Bright white head, neck, and tail feathers.
Solid yellow beaks.

Juvenile Bald Eagle Appearance

Juvenile and sub-adult Bald Eagles look different from the adults and can be more easily mistaken for other large eagles from a distance.
Young Bald Eagles lack the adults’ brilliant white head and tails feathers and solid brown-black body feathers.
Instead, juvenile Bald Eagles have:
- Mottled black-brown and white feathers,
- Two-toned beaks; yellow by the face, dark brown towards the hook (instead of the solid yellow seen on adults).
Juvenile Bald Eagles develop their white heads and tails as they age; the feathers develop when the birds molt and signal sexual maturity.

Juvenile Bald Eagle. Haliaeetus leucocephalus. Bird. Photograph taken and design created by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved. — Juvenile Bald Eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus Bird Photograph taken and design created by the author Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder All rights reserved

Bald Eagles Are Much Bigger Badder Fish Eagles

Bald Eagles hunt fish through a combination of fantastically powerful vision, impressive aerial skill, and two strong feet tipped with long, sharp, hooked talons.
They start their hunts either soaring in sweeping circles high above lakes and rivers or settled on high perches and watch for fish swimming near the surface.
- Their phenomenal eyesight helps them catch the tiny flashes of silver fish make when they float just beneath the water’s surface.
Once they spot fish, they attack from the air.
- Bald Eagles swoop down with extended legs, feet, and talons and snatch the fish right out of the water.

Bald Eagles compete directly with another fantastic, but much smaller, fish-eating bird, the Osprey (Pandion haliaetus), which is informally known as the “Fish Eagle”.
- Unlike Ospreys, Bald Eagles rarely enter the water when hunting; they prefer to fly very close to the surface and simply snatch shallow-swimming fish.
- Being much bigger and stronger, Bald Eagles often steal fish from Ospreys in areas where the two species co-exist.

Photo Gallery Of A Hunting Bald Eagle

Bald Eagles Eat More Than Just Fish

Fish make up the majority of Bald Eagles’ diets but Bald Eagles also take other prey, especially when raising nestlings.
- Prey delivered to Bald Eagle nestlings in north-central Indiana by their parents over a 75 day period included:
  - 73% fish
  - 13% birds
  - 10% mammals
  - 4% reptiles (Houssein et al. 2021, https://doi.org/10.1674/0003-0031-186.1.122)

Common prey other than fish can include:
- American Crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) (Ostrow 2006, https://doi.org/10.1676/05-116.1)
- Gulls of various species (Buchanan and Watson 2010, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40856484)
- Red-tailed Hawks (Buteo jamaicensis)
- Snakes of various species.
- Small mammals up to as large as White-tailed Deer fawns (Odocoileus virginianus) (Duquette et al. 2011, https://doi.org/10.1656/045.018.0108).

Bald Eagles Require Our Absence

Mated Bald Eagle pairs build huge, messy stick nests on high trees.
- Barring damage to the nests or supporting trees from disasters like hurricanes, Bald Eagles re-use the same nests year after year..
But Bald Eagles will abandon their nests, eggs, and hatchlings at any time if they are harassed or encroached up on by humans or human activity.
Bald Eagles require isolation to successfully breed and rear eaglets.
- Never crowd, harass or molest nesting birds, or investigate bird nests.
- Stay an absolute minimum of a quarter mile (0.4 km) from any adult Bald Eagle or nest (Stokes and Stokes 1989).

Although home ranges and core use areas vary, Bald Eagles need more space than we think:
- In one study, an adult male Bald Eagle had home ranges of 1.6 square kilometers (non-nesting season) and 1.3 square kilometers (nesting season) and core use areas of 0.2 square kilometers (non-nesting season) and 0.1 square kilometers (nesting season) (Slankard, Patton, and Watts 2021, https://doi.org/10.1656/045.028.0109).

Bald Eagle in flight. Haliaeetus leucocephalus. Bird. Photograph taken and design created by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved. — Bald Eagle in flight Haliaeetus leucocephalus Bird Photograph taken and design created by the author Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder All rights reserved

Saved By A Few Marvelously Good And Dedicated Men And Women

The Bald Eagle has been the United States of America’s National Symbol since 1782.
- In December 2024, it became the USA’s National Bird.
But Americans haven’t always treated this majestic bird with the respect both it and our patriotism deserve.
Bald Eagles were driven nearly to complete extinction throughout the entire country by the cumulative impact of rampant pesticide use and hunting—which would have been an immeasurable loss.

Thankfully, the Bald Eagle population is recovering in many parts of its former range, thanks to the brilliant, admirable, and almost too late intervention of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
- The EPA banned the insecticide dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) in 1972, and granted the Bald Eagle powerful protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Despite this recovery, Bald Eagles still face many hazards from environmental pollution, hunting, and infectious diseases.
But the species’ story shows that we humans can do more than simply destroy our fellow creatures — when we put our minds to it.

Juvenile Bald Eagle in flight. Haliaeetus leucocephalus. — Juvenile Bald Eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus Bird Photograph taken and design created by the author Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder All rights reserved

Scientific Classification

Kingdom	Animalia (animals)
Phylum	Chordata (chordates)
Class	Aves (birds)
Order	Accipitriformes
Family	Accipitridae (hawks and eagles)
Genus	Haliaeetus
Species	H. leucocephalus
Scientific Name	Haliaeetus leucocephalus

Bald Eagle Photo Gallery

Adult Bald Eagle Photo Gallery

Juvenile Bald Eagle Photo Gallery

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Christine

Christine is the creator and author of NowIWonder.com, a website dedicated to the animals and plants that share our world, and the science that helps us understand them. Inspired by lifelong exploration and learning, Christine loves to share her knowledge with others who want to connect with wild faces and wild spaces.

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