Our Eagle Page

Congress chose the American Bald Eagle in 1782 as the emblem of the United States. On the national seal the eagle is shown with its wings spread, holding an olive branch in one claw and arrows in the other. Only two species of eagles are found in the North America, the bald eagle and the Golden Eagle.

The world's 59 species of eagles are found on every continent except Antarctica. There are four major groups of eagles: fish eagles, booted eagles, snake eagles and giant forest eagles. America's eagles are the Bald Eagle, which is a fish eagle, and the Golden Eagle, which is a booted eagle. Both Golden and Bald Eagles reside in the United States.

The bald eagle, the national bird of the United States, ranges widely in North America, from Alaska to Florida, with the largest coming from the northern parts of the range. After the breeding season the northern birds migrate south, whereas many Florida eagles wander northward.

The name bald, often thought to be a misnomer, does not imply a lack of feathers, but is derived from an obsolete word meaning marked with white, as in piebald.

Young birds of this species lack the white head and tail of the adults, which take four to five years to attain. Compared to other eagles, the Bald Eagle is a relatively clumsy hunter and fisher, and for its prey relies heavily on dead or injured fish, or those that come to shallow water to spawn. It also steals fish from the osprey when the smaller bird has captured a live fish, harassing it in the air until the osprey drops the fish, whereupon the eagle snatches it.

The Eurasian counterpart of the Bald Eagle is the white-tailed sea eagle, which occasionally strays to Alaska. It is grayer than the Bald Eagle, and its head is pale but not white. The largest member of this group is Steller's sea eagle, which inhabits coastal northeastern Asia and occasionally visits the Aleutian and Pribilof islands of Alaska. It is a blackish eagle with a wedge-shaped white tail and (in adults) a large patch of white on the shoulders.

The more common Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus Leucocephalus) has white tail feathers and white plumes on the head and neck. The female is fiercer than the male, and is several inches larger. A sea eagle and the bald eagle migrates only if the body of water that it normally fishes freezes. It returns each year to the same nest, called an aerie, with the same mate.

The Golden Eagle (Aquila Chrysaetos), a magnificent bird, is more common in the Old World than in the New World, but it is found in the western part of North America from Mexico to Alaska. It is somewhat larger than the bald eagle, and its plumage is darker except for tawny feathers on its head and neck that shimmer like gold. The bald eagle has bare ankles, whereas the legs of the golden eagle are feathered to the toes. The Golden Eagle builds its huge nest on a high mountain crag.

Nebraska Eagle Viewing ====================== Two of the best places to view eagles in the central U.S. are in Nebraska. The Kingsley eagle viewing center at Lake McConaughy on the North Platte river has documented 381 bald eagles all visible from the center at the same time. The J-2 Viewing center near Lexington, NE has a record of 63 eagles. Both sites provide viewing scopes and hosts and both have photography blinds. The picture of bald eagles in the recent Nat'l Geographic story on the endangered species act (March, 1995) was taken from the Kingsley viewing center.

Bald eagles have nested successfully in 1993, 1994, and 1995 in Nebraska. In 1994 and 1995 five nests were successful in producing fledged young.