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FastestThings

Birds

Golden eagle

The ranked figure is Katzner's mean ground speed while gliding, 18.07 m/s, from five migrating eagles. It is a glide mean, not a dive record.

Also known as Aquila chrysaetos
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Top speed

Published as 18.07 m/sPublished as 18.07 m/sPublished as 18.07 m/s

Mean raw ground speed while gliding between thermals. Five golden eagles, Pennsylvania spring migration. Katzner et al. 2012, Table 1. Not a hunting dive.

VerifiedPLOS ONE (opens source in a new tab)

In context

  • 1.7× Usain Bolt's 100 m world-record paceSourced · Usain Bolt, 100 m in 9.58 s. World Athletics, Berlin 2009. Averaged over the race
  • 62% of a cheetah's timed top speedSourced · Cheetah, 29 m/s. Sharp 1997, mean of three timed runs over 201.2 m
  • A football field in 5.1 sConstant · American football field, 100 yd (91.44 m)

Worked out from the sourced figure above, which stays the ranked number.

This list

Why it's so fast

A bird's speed depends on which kind of flight was measured. A stoop, a glide and level flapping are different jobs, and this list does not pretend they are one number.

  1. The wing is a compromise

    A wing that makes lift easily is often a wing that makes drag. Birds that dash, soar or dive are shaped for one of those jobs more than the others.

  2. Read the conditions

    Radar of a stoop, a GPS glide and a flapping mean will not agree, because the bird was not doing the same thing. The ranked figure is the one the entry names.

The dive people mean is usually the peregrine falcon.

This is how the category works. A note written for this entry appears here once it is in the database.

Provenance

Every measurement

Claimed, measured and official figures side by side, each with its source. The ranked figure is marked.

  1. 65.1km/h40.4mph18.07m/s35.1knRanked figure

    Mean raw ground speed while gliding between thermals. Five golden eagles, Pennsylvania spring migration. Katzner et al. 2012, Table 1. Not a hunting dive.

    Verified
    PLOS ONE (opens source in a new tab)
  2. 42.8km/h26.6mph11.9m/s23.1kn

    Mean equivalent airspeed Ue, continuous flapping flight, Lund subset, n=1. Protocol S1, 2007.

    Verified
    PLOS Biology (opens source in a new tab)

Reference

Specs

Species
Aquila chrysaetos
Ranked figure
18.07 m/s mean ground speed, gliding
Sample
Five eagles, Katzner et al. 2012

Context

Background

Katzner and colleagues tracked five golden eagles with GPS during spring migration in Pennsylvania. Table 1 of the 2012 PLOS ONE paper gives a mean raw ground speed while gliding of 18.07 m/s. The conditions on this page call it a glide mean.

Protocol S1 of Alerstam et al. 2007 lists Aquila chrysaetos at 11.9 m/s mean equivalent airspeed in continuous flapping flight, one track. That level-flight mean is the second measurement. Dive speeds that circulate without a table were not added.

Head to head

Compare Golden eagle

Open the speed race

Spot a wrong number?

Every report is read by a person, and corrections are dated on the page.