Meet the bald eagle. A grown-up bald eagle has a white head and tail and a brown body. The word bald in the name probably comes from an old English word, balde, that meant white.
A bald eagle's body is about 28 to 38 inches long, and female eagles are larger than males. A big female can weigh as much as 14 pounds, or about 6.5 kilograms, and her wings can spread up to 8 feet, or 2.4 meters, across.
A hungry bald eagle waits on a favorite perch until it sees a fish near the surface of the water. A bald eagle sees at least four times better than a person, and it is reported to dive at speeds up to about 100 miles per hour. An eagle grabs its fish with the sharp talons on its toes.
Fish is the bald eagle's favorite food. It takes fish from near the surface and does not dive under the water.
A bald eagle pair builds its nest over one to three months before the eggs are laid. The nest is made of large sticks. The pair comes back to the same nest year after year and adds more sticks, twigs and grass. Some nests weigh as much as a ton. As of November 2026, the largest recorded bald eagle nest, found in Florida, was 20 feet deep.
A pair most often lays two eggs, and sometimes one or three. Both parents take turns keeping the eggs warm. The eggs hatch after about 35 days, and the eaglets are light gray when they hatch and turn brown later. Young eagles stay in the nest for 10 to 12 weeks.
Bald eagles are found throughout North America. Bald eagles that nest in the north generally fly south in winter, to open water. In winter many bald eagles gather near rivers where salmon come to spawn. When they are not nesting, bald eagles often rest together at shared roosts.
The insecticide DDT got into fish, and eagles that ate them laid eggs with shells too thin to last. In 1963 only 417 nesting pairs of bald eagles were known in the lower 48 states.
Bald eagles have been the national symbol of the United States since 1782.
Words to know
- insecticide: bug poison
- roosts: resting places
- spawn: lay eggs
- eaglets: baby eagles
- perch: a high seat
