With the recent emphasis I have given to Ospreys (It’s time you went, Growing up Osprey, Bountiful nuisance, Osprey family), it is easy to forget the even larger raptor in our midst: the Bald Eagle.
Indeed, the Bald Eagle is the largest permanent resident in our local avian world. Other large birds pass through our region: the White Pelican is larger, the Trumpeter Swan is comparable in size. Certainly, such birds are fun to descry, but they are transients; the Bald Eagle is a permanent resident.
Many people are familiar with the adult Bald Eagle, with its distinctive white head and tail. Alas, they regularly imagine that the juvenile Bald is actually a Golden Eagle.
The bird flying overhead is a HY—birding gobbledegook for Hatch Year, that is a bird hatched earlier that summer. This is indeed a Bald Eagle—Golden Eagles don’t have white wing pits. This bird will take another four years before it will make the full transition to the adult’s plumage, with which most people are familiar.
