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A huge brown sea-eagle with a snow-white head and tail and a heavy hooked yellow bill.

How to spot it

A huge raptor 70–90 cm long, with a wingspan up to about 2.1 m. The adult is dark brown with a clean white head and tail and a heavy yellow bill; young birds are mottled brown and white for their first years.

Where it lives

Found across North America, almost always near water — coasts, large lakes and rivers where fish are plentiful. Once badly endangered, it has recovered strongly since the pesticide DDT was banned.

What it eats

Mainly fish, snatched from at or near the surface, along with waterbirds and carrion. It will readily rob other birds, ospreys included, of their catch.

Song & behaviour

For all its fierce look, the call is a surprisingly weak, high chatter of whistles and chirps. Pairs often mate for life and return to the same nest each year.

Nesting

It builds an enormous stick nest in a tall tree or on a cliff and adds to it season after season — among the largest tree nests built by any bird.

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