The Bald Eagle's

Quest for Food

Getting food is usually easy for eagles. They are so good at it that they often spend only a few hours a day hunting. After that, they spend the rest of the day loafing. Or they may soar into the air and do tricks to amuse thenselves.

Often, the bodies and hunting methods of eagles are specialized in some way for the kind of prey they hunt. The claws and feet of eagles are just the right size and shape for taking their prey.

Eagles don't always swoop down on their prey at great speed. Instead, they may simply spread their wings wide and float slowly down - dropping out of the sky so silenly that the prey can't hear them coming.







Bald eagles are fish eagles. They usually catch fish by flying low over the water and snatching the fish out of the water with their talons. This method is only good for taking fish that are swimming close to the surface.

Fish eagles and sea eagles have rough bumps on their toes to help them hold on to slippery fish.





As a rule, eagles hunt alone or in pairs. But when there is a lot of food in one place, many eagles may gather to feed together. Bald eagles in Alska gather by the hundreds when salmon are running in the rivers. The salmon are weak from their long swin upstream and are easy to capture.









During the coldest part of winter, eagles that live in the far north sometimes have trouble finding prey. At such times, they will eat just about any kind of meat they can find. In Alaska, Bald eagles may even show up at a dump to look for bits of human food.















Some eagles let other birds do their hunting for them. They wait until pelicans or herons, or other birds make a catch from them. Here a Fish eagle is about to pounce on a pelican. In order to escape, the pelican will drop the food from its mouth.







Large eagles can hit their prey very hard. A Bald eagle can strike with twice the force of a rifle bullet.





As powerful as they are, eagles aren't as big as most people think they are. An average Bald eagle weighs about 9 pounds (4 kilograms) - or 2 pounds less than average house cat.































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