Juvenile Bald Eagle
by Elizabeth Winter
Title
Juvenile Bald Eagle
Artist
Elizabeth Winter
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
The adult bald eagle: This bird is described as "all field mark": large size;
bright white head, neck and tail; dark brown body and wings; and bright yellow bill. It takes four, five or six years to reach this plumage, and almost nobody needs help naming this eagle.
The 4th year bird has many of the characteristics of the adult, but certainly not all. The head is dingy white, sometimes with a dark eye-line, like an Osprey. The tail has much white, but it often has dark marks, especially a dark band near the tip of the tail. Often, there are scattered spots of white on the otherwise dark body and wings. The bill is mostly yellow, but with dusky gray smudges.
The 3rd and 2nd year birds look quite different from the 4th year bird. The abdomen shows white marks, which often are extensive. Also, dramatic white patches appear in the "wing-pits", i.e., where the wings join the body. The "wing-linings", i.e., the front half or so of the underwings, often show a considerable amount of white markings. A whitish triangle often appears on the upper back of the bird, and the top of the head is often whitish. All of the above factors also apply to a 2nd year bird, but a key way to separate a 3rd year from a 2nd year bird involves the trailing edge of the wings. On the 3rd year bird, the trailing edge is "smooth", i.e., all (or all but 1) of the flight feathers are the same length, which gives the trailing edge a smooth or regular look. But on the 2nd year bird, about half of the flight feathers are longer than the others (they have not molted yet) and this causes the trailing edge to appear ragged or irregular. This feature is only seen in flight, but it can be apparent.
The 1st year bird is the most often confused with a Golden Eagle. The body of the 1st year bird is two shades of brown: darker on the breast and lighter brown on the lower body. There is no whitish triangle on the back, the crown is often buffy, the upper wings are two toned brown, and the bill is dark. The head is dark and the tail is whitish with a dark band at the tip. Small wonder it is mistakenly called a
Golden Eagle. But when the juvenile Bald Eagle lifts off or just lifts it's wings, you will see white in the wing-pits and the wing-linings, much like you would in the 2nd and 3rd year Bald Eagles. The Golden Eagle, though, would have dark wing-pits. The color of the wing-pits is a key difference between the Bald Eagle (white) and the Golden Eagle (dark).
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March 10th, 2016
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