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Bald eagles (summer)        Images © Mark A. Chappell

The unmistakable and iconic bald eagle is the only eagle found exclusively in North America, where it lives from the Arctic to the Florida subtropics in nearly any habitat close to suitable bodies of water.   Basically, it is a standard fish eagle and gets much of its food from fish (scavenged or captured alive), but it will also eat pretty much any carrion and can be a capable predator of mammals and large birds like ducks.   The characteristic adult plumage is attained after several years of brown and whitish juvenile and subadult plumages (the dark bird at upper right is a nestling).   Most of these eagles were photographed in either downtown Seward or Anchorage, Alaska; the young birds on the power poles were at the San Jacinto Wildlife Area near Riverside, California (more images of these birds are here).

Pictures of bald eagles in winter are here, and images of flying eagles are here.

  • Canon 10D, 1D Mk. II, 1D4, or 7DII; 500 mm f4 IS lens + 1.4X or 2X converter (both combined for the scratching adult) or 800 mm IS lens plus 1.4X converter, fill-in flash on the juveniles (2004, 2006, 2012, 2013, 2015)