When I first saw these eagles and began taking pictures, I had thought I was getting a rare glimpse of Golden Eagles.  Golden Eagles rarely venture this far east, preferring the more mountainous regions of Western Canada, Western United States and Mexico.  It is common to mistake adolescent Bald Eagles for Golden Eagles and in my defense I’m not a wildlife biologist, I am a history major.  With that said here is a good picture of an adolescent Bald Eagle.

 

This was a big bird and it cruised above me mostly by itself, while the other adolescent Bald Eagles left it alone.  The mottled coloring underneath helps to camouflage it, and, as you can see, it has not got white tail feathers or a white head.  In the next photo, which is somewhat overexposed, this adolescent has begun to get white feathers.

 

One of the disadvantages of using manual settings on my camera and shooting wildlife, as happened with this photo, is that I was shooting toward some trees at the adult Bald Eagles across the river and this bird flew over-head in the bright sky.  I snapped pictures before I adjusted the aperture.  But as you can see the bird has white tail feathers, but does not have a white head, nor does it have a yellow beak.  Bald Eagles will get their white feathers somewhere between three to five years of age.