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This bird surprised me while I was trying to get a pic of those squirrels as they climbed higher into that tree! Just cruising north directly over the river.

I realize these are terrible photos, and I would not blame anyone for busting this down to Accipitridae based only on these, but hear me out for reasons why I think this was a bald eagle!

• Almost impossible to tell scale from these pics but in person this bird was VERY large, turkey vulture to blue heron sized wingspan (though clearly it is neither of those), large enough to make another person on the path with me exclaim out loud when it flew past. A very big female red tail hawk had a nest close to here in 2022 (pictures of nest and fledglings when I get that far in my backlog…) and this was bigger than her.
• Big ol’ head/beak!
• Much too backlit even in person to be able to see the color of the beak, feet, or even head for sure, but belly and under-wings definitely all dark, and under-tail paler. Even if head not white, could be an immature bird who just hasn’t “gone bald” yet.
• Wings held pretty flat during brief soaring between flaps (that’s the distant circled shape behind the trees in the last pic)
• a golden eagle might also be this big and dark with a pale tail, but baldies are MUCH more common in the Midwest (all over Indiana when I visit family there) so even though I’ve never seen one in Chicago, that’s the stronger probability.

Let me know what you think!