How Fast Can an Eagle Fly? Cruising and Diving Speeds

Eagle speeds at a glance

These are ground speeds or rough estimates, so wind can shift them a lot. An eagle gliding with a tailwind travels much faster over the ground than one fighting a headwind, even if its effort is the same.

How fast do eagles fly normally?

Day to day, eagles are not built for speed. Large eagles have long, broad wings with “fingered” tips, ideal for soaring on rising air rather than for fast flapping. Flapping a body of 3–6 kg (7–13 lb) is hard work, so eagles flap as little as possible.

Instead they ride thermals, columns of warm air that rise from sun-heated ground, and updrafts where wind hits a ridge or cliff. An eagle circles up in a thermal, then glides off in a long, shallow descent to the next one. This gliding is how eagles cover distance, and it is when they move at their typical 45–70 km/h (28–43 mph).

The bald eagle is a little faster in normal flight than many people expect, but it is less built for speed than the golden eagle, with broader, more plank-like wings suited to slow soaring over water. When carrying a heavy fish, it slows to about 48 km/h (30 mph).

How fast do eagles dive?

The fastest eagle speeds come during the stoop, a steep dive used to attack prey or in territorial displays. The eagle pulls its wings in close to the body and tucks its legs against its tail, turning itself into a streamlined shape that accelerates under gravity.

The golden eagle is the champion diver among eagles. Its stoop is commonly given as 240–320 km/h (150–200 mph), and some researchers think it may equal the peregrine falcon. However, these numbers come from older observations and estimates rather than modern instruments, so they should be treated as approximate. What is clear is that the golden eagle uses gravity much like a falcon does, folding its wings to drop onto hares and gamebirds from a great height.

Bald eagles also dive, at an estimated 120–160 km/h (75–99 mph), but they rarely fall vertically. To catch fish they usually make a shallow, gliding swoop and snatch prey from the surface with their feet.

Measured speeds versus estimates

Measuring a diving bird is difficult. It may drop from hundreds of meters, change angle and disappear behind a ridge, and the observer usually has no fixed reference. Speeds for wild eagles therefore come from a mix of timing by eye, film analysis, radar and, more recently, GPS tags that record position many times per second.

For the peregrine falcon, researchers have filmed and tracked trained and wild birds in dives, and speeds of over 300 km/h (186 mph) are well supported, as explained in How fast is a peregrine falcon?. For golden eagles, no study has timed a full-length hunting stoop with comparable precision. That does not mean the estimates are wrong, only that they are less certain. When you see “the golden eagle dives at 320 km/h” written as a fact, read it as “up to roughly that speed, according to estimates”.

Why eagles fly fast or slow

Speed is a trade-off for any bird. Big, broad wings give lift at low speed, which helps eagles soar for hours and carry prey, but they create drag at high speed. Falcons have narrower, pointed wings and compact bodies, which favor speed and agility over lift.

Eagles get around this by changing shape. In a glide the wings are partly folded and swept back, cutting drag; in a stoop they are pulled in completely. Heavier birds also accelerate well in a dive, because their weight is large compared with the air resistance on their body.

Weather matters too. On calm, cloudy days without thermals, eagles may hardly fly at all. On windy days along mountain ridges, they can travel quickly with almost no flapping.

Eagles among the fastest birds

The peregrine falcon remains the fastest animal on Earth, thanks to its measured dives. The golden eagle probably ranks among the fastest diving birds after it, and the gyrfalcon and other large falcons are also extremely fast in dives. In level flapping flight, the records go to other birds entirely: swifts, ducks and geese can sustain speeds that eagles rarely match.

For the full ranking of fast animals on land, in the air and in water, see our list of the fastest animals.