It was a cloudy day along the nearby Union River last week when we spotted one of our favorite couples doing their food shopping. Bald Eagles, and all our native hawks and owls, are “reversed-sized sexually dimorphic.” Not to worry, that just means that the females are larger than the males.
The size difference between these two lovers is the greatest that we’ve ever seen, primarily because the female is one of the largest that we’ve seen and the male is a bit on the small side.
Generally, females are about 25 percent larger than their mates, but this one appears to be 35-40 percent larger. As is often the case in Hollywood, this male protagonist may be small, but he’s handsome:
The usual size range of adult Bald Eagles is 6.6 to 14 pounds with wingspans of 6 to 7.5 feet. (Ellsworth, Maine)