Golden EagleOften dubbed the “king of birds,” the golden eagle measures up to 34.5 inches (88 cm) from head to tail and has a wingspan of up to 7.5 feet (2.2 m), female being larger than males.
The plumage is dark chocolate brown, tinged with golden yellow on the head.
Young birds have white tails with a broad, dark band across the base and white on the undersides of the wings.
In flights the wings appear broad, with the primary feathers at the wingtips separated and curving upward.
From a distance, when size experienced observed to confuse golden eagles with some of the smaller, medium sized species of hawks.
Golden eagles are found right across the Northern Hemisphere in open, mountainous country.
The species’ worldwide range encompasses the main wilderness regions of the temperate climate zones, and extends northward into the steppe and boreal zones and southward into the Mediterranean zone.
Occasionally golden eagles occur in lowland forests and wetlands but in these latter habitats the species is usually replaced by the imperial eagle, A. heliaca.
In North America golden eagles range from Alaska south to Mexico mainly on the western side of the continent, and east across Canada, between Hudson Bay and the Greta Lakes to Nova Scotia.
A similar and closely related species of large eagle, Verreaux’s eagle, Aquila verreauxii, replaces the golden eagle in southern and eastern Africa.
It is slightly large and much darker in plumage than the golden eagle, and is sometime called the black eagle.
Golden Eagle
