How to differentiate between a male and a female eagle ?

A friend of mine, Fabeha once asked how its possible to tell the gender of eagles just by looking at them. So then i realised maybe others might not know as well. So here i am writing to help you distinguish between the male and the females. However the focus is going to be on Bald eagles but these conditions apply to almost all types.

For a normal ( a bird watcher) observer its a pretty simple job. The only thing one need to look at is the relative size. The female ones are larger than males by roughy a third of the size. Technically female bald eagles have a size of 37 inches while males are 30 inches long.

Then one can look at the talons for further verification. The number is the same on both males and females but the length of these talons differ. Females have longer talons as compared to males.

And if you are a good listener then you can differentiate by the sounds of the two. Females have a lower pitch voice as compared to males.

Although these might look simple to read but distinguishing isn't a very simple job. It requires you to dedicate a lot of time looking at these raptors and to get used to their size and sounds.

Hopefully now you know the difference....

Seeing an eagle is true happiness

How true :)

Eagle tests before it trusts

The Eagle tests before it trusts. When a female eagle meets a male
and they want to mate, she flies down to earth with the male pursing
her and she picks a twig. She flies back into the air with the male
pursuing her. Once she has reached a height high enough for her, she
lets the twig fall to the ground and watches it as it falls. The male
chases after the twig. The faster it falls, the faster he chases until
he reaches it and has to catch it before it falls to the ground, then
bring it back to the female eagle.

Bald eagle dives to retreat the twig

An eagle carrying a twig
The female eagle grabs the twig and flies to a much higher
altitude pursued by the male, until she perceives it high enough, and
then drops the twig for the male to chase. This goes on for hours,
with the height increasing until the female eagle is assured that the
male eagle has mastered the art of picking the twig which shows
commitment, then and only then, will she allow him to mate with her!
Amazing, isn't it ?

Hunting with eagles

Hunting with golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) is a traditional art of the Eurasian steppes, particularly defined as "Horse Riding Falconry" or "The Eagle Falconry" in Central Asia. It is a type of falconry.

Kazakh eagle hunter in Mongolia.

The relationship of the bird and its master is constant and all-consuming. In the training of a young eagle, the berkutchy (trainer) must sacrifice his sleep for a long period. For weeks, the growing bird is rendered sightless under its hood until its dependence on its master becomes complete. Such intimacy must turn into a lifelong trust with the eagle - twenty years or more. It is said "that as the man trains the eagle, so does the eagle train his man." There is a proverb in Kazakhstan: "There are three things a real man should have: a fast horse, a hound, and a golden eagle."


First In 936-45 AD the Khitans, nomadic people from Manchuria used this practice of hunting with eagles. Then the tradition was passed to the Kyrgyz during the reign of Genghis khan.


Even today,Kazakhs living in Mongolia continue to hunt with eagles. There are an estimated 250 eagle hunters alive today practicing this tradition. Every year they gather for the Golden eagle festival in Mongolia.

If you are lucky, perhaps you can meet them someday but remember, hunting with these raptors is their family tradition so they wont disclose the secrets to you.

Amazing eagle pictures

A collection of some amazing pictures of these raptors.

The following pictures are the property of their respective owners.

What if humans had eagle vision ?

Ever wondered how it would feel if you had the vision of an eagle? If you could see what was going on through the eyes of a raptor, would you be excited?

If you swapped your eyes for an eagle's, you could see a bug crawling on the ground from the roof of a 10-story building. You could make out the expressions on football players' faces from the worst seats in the arena. Objects directly in your line of sight would appear magnified, and everything would be brilliantly colored, rendered in an inconceivable array of shades.

And yes, the more we know about eagle vision the more we desire to attain it. Thanks to the technological developments, some aspects to this vision can be achieved while for the rest we can do nothing apart from dreaming in its colors.

Eagle's Eyes

Eagles and other birds of prey can see four to five times farther than the average human can, meaning they have 20/5 or 20/4 vision under ideal viewing conditions. Scientists have to cook up special experiments to judge eagles' eyesight — your optometrist's alphabet eye charts are of no use, after all — and one common setup involves training the birds to fly down a long tunnel toward two TV screens. One screen displays a striped pattern, and the birds get a treat when they land on it. Scientists test their acuity by varying the width of the stripes and determining from what distance the eagles begin to veer in the correct direction.




On top of sharp focus and a central magnifier, eagles, like all birds, also have superior color vision. They see colors as more vivid than we do, can discriminate between more shades, and can also see ultraviolet light — an ability that evolved to help them detect the UV-reflecting urine trails of small prey. But there's no way to know what these extra colors, including ultraviolet, look like. "Suppose you wanted to describe the color of a tomato to someone who was born blind. You couldn't do it. We can't even guess what they're subjective sensation of ultraviolet light is."

Life with 20/5 vision

Eagle vision wouldn't change how we perform most daily activities — such as reading computer screens or the newspaper, or finding milk in a crowded refrigerator — but how we perceive the world and use our eyes would certainly be different. It's perhaps easiest to consider our new powers in the context of how eagles use them: for hunting.



On top of the ability to see farther and perceive more colors, we would also have nearly double the field of view. With our eyes angled 30 degrees away from the midline of our faces like an eagle's, we would see almost all the way behind our heads with a 340-degree visual field (compared to normal humans' 180 degree field); this would confer a clear advantage in hunting and self-defense.



Enhanced perception and hunting prowess would likely come with a few drawbacks. "I would say that birds probably have a greater proportion of their brain volume devoted to visual processing than other groups of animals. Now the question of what it comes at the expense of: most birds appear not to have a well-developed sense of smell or taste."

It really would be wonderful to have an eagle's vision if you can afford a few drawbacks. After all your potential would increase and you can wonders!

Eagle's significance

In ancient Egypt and Babel the eagle was:

The symbol of the noon sun, which signified the Great Spirit.

To the Egyptians;

The eagle was the messenger to the gods and the sun, a symbol of eternal life.

To the Romans;

The eagle was the carrier of Jupiter's thunderbolts and a sign of power, which was adopted as a symbol of the Roman emperors, and was carried before the Empire's legions.

To the Greeks;

The eagle was the messenger to the Greek God Zeus, and Zeus took the form of an eagle when he carried his young lover Ganymede to Mt. Olympus.

A unique picture showing cloud formation in the shape of an eagle.
Were the Romans and Greeks right after all ?