A person can’t talk about eagles without using a superlative or two. Words like grandeur and majestic spring immediately to mind.
     Another word often heard in conversations about eagles is “big.” The wingspan of the average eagle is 6½ feet — from wingtip to wingtip, longer than most people are tall! Just like those dining room tables that expand when you slide a leaf in, so an eagle’s wings seem to have an extra leaf of length on either side.
     The Bald Eagle is the most well-known, with its snowy white head and tail, but the other eagle in the neighborhood is the Golden Eagle. This brother doesn’t get nearly the attention that its Bald Eagle brother does — it’s not easy to compete with a national icon.
     And yet Golden Eagles are every bit as regal in their way, and are found up and down the High Plains, wintering in our eastern half and year-round residents to the north and west.
     The gold in a Golden Eagle is a bit like a heavenly halo — now and then you see one, but mostly you don’t…! It’s a golden wash that spills across the head and neck, nearly invisible unless the light is right.
     If you imagine both eagles wearing hoods over their heads and necks, then the Bald Eagle’s hood is solid white satin while the Golden wears a golden veil.
     This gilded veil, when you see it, is a reliable trait in a Golden Eagle, present in young and old of both sexes. The trouble is it’s really difficult to see. In life and in most photographs I’ve seen, Golden Eagles appear almost uniformly dark brown.
     You might confuse a Golden Eagle for a buzzard in flight, but a second look will show that the buzzard flies with its wings in a deep dihedral, and there’s a rocking motion to its flight. An eagle flies steadily with its long wings held out flat.
     Young eagles can be tricky to tell apart. Both juveniles have white in their plumage, but the white in a Bald Eagle juvenile is mottled and streaky. Most Golden Eagle youth have white patches on the wings, and a mostly white tail with a broad black border on the edge.
     Another difference in eagles is their diet. Bald Eagles eat mostly fish, but Golden Eagles eat just about anything they want. They take full advantage of their position near the head of the food chain, eating not only cottontails, jackrabbits, ground squirrels, and prairie dogs, but badgers, bobcats, goats, pigs, deer, antelope, coyotes, mountain goats, even bighorn sheep! They eat birds, too, like geese, turkeys, pheasant, cranes, Great Horned Owls, American Bitterns, Great Blue Herons, and Trumpeter Swans.
     The good news for the ecosystem is that Golden Eagle territories are so large that the other food chain members have a chance to recover after being on the Golden buffet. And the good news for us humans is that Golden Eagles have never developed a taste for us.
     At least as far as we know. American Indian legend tells of thunderbirds that lived off buffalo young. Perhaps, just as there were giant mammoths once, there were also giant eagles — powerful enough to carry away a baby buffalo, or even a man.
      When eagles are the subject, we mere humans seem compelled to express our admiration. Such magnificent raptors ought to teach us to be humble, and compel us to preserve their habitat. Doing so will guarantee that High Plains skies will always be graced by Golden Eagles.
    
[I studied Golden Eagles at Birds of North America Online.]