Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus): Facts and Habitat

Appearance: how to recognize a bald eagle

An adult bald eagle is hard to mistake. The body and wings are an even chocolate brown, while the head, neck and tail are bright white. The bill is large, hooked and bright yellow, and the eyes and bare lower legs are also yellow. Unlike golden eagles, bald eagles do not have feathers all the way down to the toes.

Males and females look the same, but females are clearly bigger. Young birds are very different: they are mostly brown with irregular white blotches, a dark bill and dark eyes. They gain the classic white head and tail gradually and look fully adult at about 4 to 5 years old. You can read the full sequence in when bald eagles get their white heads.

The name has nothing to do with baldness. It comes from an older English meaning of bald, “white-headed”. The scientific name says the same thing: Haliaeetus means “sea eagle” and leucocephalus means “white head” in Greek.

Size: how big is a bald eagle?

The bald eagle is one of the largest birds of prey in North America. Typical measurements are:

Females are about a quarter larger than males. Size also changes with latitude: eagles in Alaska and Canada are much heavier than those in Florida or the Gulf Coast, and big Alaskan females can exceed 7 kg (15 lb) with wings spanning about 2.4 m (8 ft). The golden eagle is very close in average weight, so neither species is clearly “the biggest eagle in North America”. More detail is in how big is a bald eagle?.

Despite their bulk, eagles are light for their size because their bones are hollow. In level flight they usually travel at about 56–70 km/h (35–43 mph), and in a steep dive they can reach roughly 120–160 km/h (75–100 mph).

Habitat and range

Bald eagles are the only sea eagle native to North America. Their range covers Alaska and most of Canada, all of the contiguous United States and northern Mexico. The Eurasian counterpart is the white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla), a close relative that fills the same role in Europe and Asia.

The key habitat requirement is open water with plenty of fish: seacoasts, large lakes, big rivers, estuaries, reservoirs and marshes. Eagles also need tall, sturdy trees with a clear view, usually within a few hundred meters of the water, for perching, roosting and nesting. Where there are no trees, they nest on cliffs or even on the ground, for example on some Alaskan islands.

Northern eagles move south or toward the coast when lakes and rivers freeze, while many southern birds stay on their territory all year. In winter, hundreds or even thousands of eagles can gather where open water and food are easy to find, such as below dams on the Mississippi River, along the Squamish River in British Columbia and on the Chilkat River near Haines, Alaska, where late salmon runs draw one of the largest eagle gatherings in the world.

Diet: what bald eagles eat

Bald eagles are opportunistic carnivores, but fish come first. Across 20 diet studies, fish made up about 56% of the prey brought to nests, birds about 28% and mammals about 14%. Salmon, herring, shad, catfish, suckers and carp are typical, depending on the region.

To catch a fish, an eagle glides low over the water and snatches it near the surface with its talons, without diving in like an osprey. Rough scales called spicules on the soles of the feet help grip slippery prey. Eagles also take ducks, coots, gulls and seabirds, rabbits and muskrats, turtles in some areas, and plenty of carrion, including dead salmon after spawning and roadkill.

They are famous food pirates. Bald eagles regularly chase ospreys and other birds until they drop their catch, a habit called kleptoparasitism. Benjamin Franklin mocked them for it, but for the eagle it is simply efficient. See what do bald eagles eat? for the full menu.

Nests, pairs and breeding

Bald eagles usually keep the same mate for many years, and if one partner dies the survivor soon pairs with a new one. Courtship includes dramatic flights in which the two birds lock talons high in the air and tumble downward together, letting go before they reach the ground.

The nest is a huge platform of sticks lined with grass, moss and other soft material, usually high in a large tree. Pairs add to it every year, so an old nest becomes enormous. A typical nest is about 1.5–1.8 m (5–6 ft) across and 0.6–1.2 m (2–4 ft) deep, but long-used nests can be far larger. A nest near St. Petersburg, Florida, measured about 2.9 m (9.5 ft) wide and 6.1 m (20 ft) deep and was estimated to weigh more than 2 metric tons.

In most areas the female lays 1 to 3 eggs, usually 2, from late winter to spring (as early as fall or winter in Florida). Both parents incubate for about 35 days, though the female does most of the sitting. The chicks grow quickly and leave the nest at about 10 to 12 weeks old, then stay near the nest for several more weeks while they learn to fly and find food.

Lifespan and survival

Life is hardest in the first year: roughly half of young bald eagles survive it in many studies. Adults that get through those early years often live 20 years or more. The oldest known wild bald eagle was at least 38 years old when it was hit by a car in New York in 2015; it had been banded in the same state in 1977. In captivity, one bird lived to nearly 50.

Healthy adult bald eagles have no regular natural predators. Eggs and chicks can be taken by raccoons, black bears, ravens, gulls, great horned owls and other predators, and nests sometimes fall in storms. Most deaths of adults today are linked to people: collisions with vehicles and power lines, electrocution and poisoning.

Conservation status and threats

The IUCN Red List classes the bald eagle as Least Concern, and its population is increasing. That is a remarkable turnaround. By 1963 only about 417 nesting pairs were known in the lower 48 states, after decades of shooting, habitat loss and, above all, the pesticide DDT, which made eggshells so thin that they broke during incubation.

Legal protection, the 1972 US ban on DDT, and the Endangered Species Act allowed a strong recovery. The bald eagle was removed from the US endangered species list in 2007, and a US Fish and Wildlife Service estimate based on 2019 surveys put the lower 48 population at about 316,700 birds, including some 71,400 breeding pairs. The full story is told in how did the bald eagle recover?.

Threats remain. The biggest current problem is lead poisoning: eagles that scavenge carcasses or gut piles can swallow fragments of lead ammunition, and a 2022 study in the journal Science found repeated lead exposure in close to half of the bald eagles sampled across 38 states. Collisions, electrocution on power poles, wind turbines and disturbance of nest sites also kill or affect eagles. In the United States the species is still protected by the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act of 1940 and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

Bald eagles and people

The bald eagle has been a national emblem of the United States since 1782, when it was placed on the Great Seal, and in December 2024 a federal law officially named it the national bird. It appears on the presidential seal, coins, passports and countless logos.

Long before that, the bald eagle and the golden eagle were sacred birds for many Indigenous nations of North America. Their feathers are used in ceremonies, and US law allows enrolled members of federally recognized tribes to obtain eagle feathers and parts through the National Eagle Repository for religious use.

Myths and facts

Myth: bald eagles make a fierce, piercing scream. In films and TV, eagles are often dubbed with the harsh scream of a red-tailed hawk. Real bald eagle calls are thin, high chirps and whistling piping notes that sound surprisingly gentle.

Myth: bald eagles regularly carry off pets, lambs or children. Bald eagles can take small mammals and very rarely young lambs, but stories of babies or large dogs being carried off are not supported by evidence. Like other big eagles, they can usually lift only around half their own body weight, about 2–3 kg (4–7 lb).

Myth: Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey as the national symbol. Franklin never proposed the turkey for the Great Seal. He criticized the bald eagle’s “bad moral character” in a private, half-joking 1784 letter to his daughter, written after the seal had already been adopted.