Eagle Coloring Pages

An eagle is mostly wings, and wings are a pleasure to color: long feathers in rows, each one its own shape. These eagle coloring pages follow the bald eagle through its whole world, from the nest to the mountaintop, and from the river where it hunts to the wide sky where it soars.

Many pages are about flight. An eagle soars over snowy mountains, flies high above a winding canyon, glides past a full moon, skims the ocean waves, crosses a pine forest and a flower meadow, and dives headfirst through the clouds. A pair of eagles flies together, and one spreads its wings in front of the rising sun. Others show the eagle at rest: on a pine branch, a fence post, a rocky cliff edge, a stack of stones, the arm of a saguaro cactus, a tree stump by a log cabin and a rock at the top of a waterfall, and a close-up page is nothing but that famous white head and hooked beak. The hunting pages show an eagle swooping low over a lake and lifting a fish out of a river, and another drinks from a forest stream. Family life gets its pages too: an eagle carries a stick to build its nest, feeds its fluffy chicks, and a lone eaglet sits in the nest or flaps its first wings. There is weather as well, with an eagle hunched in the rain and another on a snowy branch.

The holiday pages give the eagle a lighter side: it carves a jack o'lantern, trick-or-treats in a witch hat, hangs an ornament on the Christmas tree, carries a present in a Santa hat, builds a snowman in a scarf, holds an Easter basket and a heart balloon, and blows out its birthday candles.

The bald eagle, up close

The bald eagle lives only in North America and has been the emblem of the United States since 1782, when it was placed on the Great Seal. Its name does not mean it has no feathers: "bald" comes from an old word for white, after the white head. Young bald eagles are brown all over and only get the white head and tail at four or five years old.

A few things worth knowing:

• A bald eagle's wings can span more than two meters, about as wide as a car is long.
• Eagles build the biggest nests of any bird in North America, adding to them every year until some weigh as much as a small car.
• Their eyesight is several times sharper than ours, good enough to spot a fish from high above a lake.
• Bald eagles were once rare in the United States, and protection since the 1970s has brought them back across the country.

How to color a bald eagle

The colors of a real bald eagle are simple and striking:

• White head and tail. Leave them almost uncolored, with a little pale gray for the shadows between feathers.
• Dark chocolate brown body and wings, a little lighter at the feather edges.
• Bright yellow beak, eyes and feet.

An eaglet is a softer gray-brown all over. For the landscapes, blue sky and water, gray and brown cliffs, and a deep orange sun make the white head stand out.

Big wings or a whole landscape

A few pages show one eagle, drawn large, with little behind it, which suits a young child. Quick to color, above the grid, begins with:

• Flying pair
• Sunrise
• Eagle face

The detailed pages are full of feathers, canyons, forests and waves. Lots of detail begins with:

• Feeding time
• Log cabin
• Eaglet

Eagles for school and the Fourth of July

As the national emblem, the bald eagle is a natural fit for a lesson on American symbols, next to the flag and the Statue of Liberty, and for Fourth of July or Presidents' Day crafts. The nest and eaglet pages also work for a science lesson on how birds raise their young: color the nest page, then talk about how long the chicks stay (around three months) before their first flight.

Printing

Every page is a free A4 PDF drawn at 300 dpi. A4 prints at full size, and on US Letter "fit to page" shrinks the drawing by about six percent so the wingtips stay on the paper. The printing guide shows the setting. Add to pack prints a whole flight of eagles at once. More birds are in the bird coloring pages and more wildlife in the animal coloring pages, and the American flag coloring pages and 4th of July coloring pages go well with the national emblem.