Bird Guide

Pallas's Fish Eagle vs Steller's Sea Eagle

Pallas's Fish Eagle (Haliaeetus leucoryphus)

Pallas's Fish Eagle

Haliaeetus leucoryphus

Huge2.9 kgWetland

The Pallas's fish eagle has a light sandy-brown hood and a whitish face. The wings are darker brown and the back rufous. The long, slender wings (particularly slender for a sea eagle) are rather dark brown underneath. The tail is black with a wide, distinctive white stripe. Juveniles are overall darker, cooler brown with no band on the tail but with several pale areas on the wing, including the underwing coverts and inner primaries. This results in underwings that have a white band in young fish eagles. It takes until the 4th year or so to obtain adult plumage.

ID text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Koshy Koshy from Faridabad, Haryana, India · CC BY 2.0
Steller's Sea Eagle (Haliaeetus pelagicus)

Steller's Sea Eagle

Haliaeetus pelagicus

Huge7.8 kgWetland

Mature H. pelagicus eagles have mostly dark brown to black plumage, with strongly contrasting white on the lesser and median upper-wing coverts, under-wing coverts, thighs, under-tail coverts, and tail. Their diamond-shaped, white tails are relatively longer than those of the white-tailed eagle. The bold, pied coloration of adults may play some part in social hierarchies with other eagles of their own species during the nonbreeding season, although this has not been extensively studied. A very rare dark morph, once regarded as a separate subspecies, H. p. Voice: Steller's sea eagle is known to make a deep barking cry, ra-ra-ra-raurau. In aggressive interactions, its call is similar to the white-tailed eagles, but deeper. During the display at the beginning of the breeding season, they have been heard to make calls to each other that sound like very loud, deep-voiced gulls.

ID text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Michael Pinczolits · CC BY 2.0

Where you might meet both

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Photos and recordings are credited to their authors under the licence shown. Full profiles: Pallas's Fish Eagle and Steller's Sea Eagle.