Great Paintings of Bald Eagles

Bald eagles can only lift about half their weight in flight. They can fly at speeds of about 30 miles per hour in level flight, and up to 100 miles per hour in a dive. They fly to altitudes of 10,000 feet or more, and can soar aloft for hours using natural wind currents.

Bald Eagles mate for life. They lay two to three eggs yearly and building nests that they may expand year after year, sometimes producing structures 10 feet in diameter and weighing one ton. Nests are usually made of sticks in a tall tree or, less frequently, on top of a cliff. They often nest within 100 miles of where they hatched.

Chicks: Bald eagles incubate their eggs for about 35 days. The chick will measure four to five inches at hatching and weigh only a matter of ounces. The feathers of newly hatched bald eagle chicks are light grey, and turn dark brown before they leave the nest at about 12 weeks of age. Only ten percent of chicks survive to adulthood, or five years old. Most die of starvation.

Parenting: The male does most of the hunting and scavenging during the early weeks of the chick's life. The female does the majority of the feeding and brooding. The male give the female a break at the nest.

Eagles from northern parts of the range migrate south for the winter, gathering in roosting areas along waters with abundant fish.


When bald eagles pursue their prey they rarely enter the water as an osprey does. They snatch the fish from the surface with their talons. Where ospreys are common, the eagles obtain much of their food by stealing it from the smaller "fish hawk."

In 1999 there were about 5,800 nesting pairs of bald eagles in the lower 48 states. As many as 16,000 birds have been counted in the wild. The life span of Bald Eagle is more than 30 years old in the wild.