The wind was blowing hard on Christmas Day at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge and one of the Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) took to the sky, spread its impressive wings, and effortlessly soared above me for a short while.
I really enjoyed the Christmas show.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Those are some magnificent photos, Mike. If I see them soaring around here, they are usually too high to get a good photo. I love the amount of detail you captured.
One wonders how this one lost those few feathers in its right wing. We don’t see that very often.
It certainly made this eagle pretty distinctive, but I haven’t a clue how it would have lost those feathers, Gary. Will they grow back?
Good question! The missing feathers should grow back when the eagle molts, though it might be a long process. Since eagles depend on healthy, intact wings for precise maneuvering and hunting, they are among the birds whose molts of their flight feathers are usually as gradual as possible, with just one matched pair of flight feathers being replaced at a time, with little or no overlap between when the previously-molted pair reached full growth and when the next pair would be shed. Because eagles are so large, it is likely that they molt only every two years rather than the typically-annual molt of smaller species.
Wonderful portraits. The eagle looks so powerful and yet elegant an graceful soaring in that way. I noticed the missing feathers too but could not even begin to posit an answer as to what might have happened.