A Great Eagle of Middle Earth
Here's the scene with the eagles (this is the end of the movie, so you probably shouldn't watch if you haven't seen it yet): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0amNOI0vsxI
By looks alone, it's clear that these birds are bigger than any bird in our world. Even considering that they are carrying dwarves and hobbits, no eagle is that much larger than a human being. Golden eagles have a wingspan of 6-8 feet. By simply eye-balling the eagles in the movie, and taking into consideration the average height of a Middle Earth dwarf (4-5 feet) I'd guess the Great Eagles to have a wingspan of about 20-30 feet (3-4 times greater than our golden eagles). According to the Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkein's prequel to The Hobbit, Thorondor, the Lord of the Eagles, had a wingspan of 30 fathoms, which translates to 180 feet! (Okay, but this was the greatest eagle of them all).
A Great Eagle with Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit on its back
Besides the obvious size difference, we have to take vocalizations into consideration. The Great Eagles in the youtube clip sound an awful lot like our red-tailed hawks, a high-pitched, descending screeeeeeeech (it is not uncommon for Hollywood to use the sound of a red-tailed hawk as the call of any number of raptors as it is easily the most epic sounding of raptor calls). In contrast, golden eagles are relatively quiet birds; the most commonly heard sounds are the beggings of hungry chicks, or the parents, announcing their return to the nest with food (sound clip: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Golden_Eagle/sounds).
Despite their "small size" and apparent inability to save dwarves from unfortunate situations, golden eagles are pretty incredible raptors in their own right. For one, they are the largest naturally occurring bird found in Minnesota (and second only to the California condor in the US). They can dive up to 200 miles per hour, and one of their courtship displays involves 20 of these steep dives in sequence. They exhibit teamwork. Mated pairs work together to hunt prey (like rabbits) from the ground; oftentimes, one eagle will distract the animal while the other goes in for the kill.
Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos)
Golden eagles are the subject of important research happening here in Minnesota thanks to a partnership between the National Eagle Center, Audubon Minnesota, and the MN DNR. The golden eagle conservation project strives to better understand breeding habits and origins of golden eagles that winter in Minnesota to develop conservation and management strategies for these birds. A major component of this study involves tracking golden eagles via GPS units attached to the birds. In November, one such golden eagle was caught by Frank, one of my bird banding mentors at Hawk Ridge in Duluth, MN. Goden eagles are rarely caught at Hawk Ridge, so it was a big deal. The GPS unit was attached to the bird (now known as Golden Eagle 53) and now, every two or three days, a digital map is updated with the location of the eagle, which at this point, appears to be wintering a little south of Springfield, MO. The website for the project is: http://mn.audubon.org/golden-eagle-conservation and the digital map can be found here: http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=05cdea90335348998641ccee6670ff81 (Golden Eagle 53 is the purple line on the map).
Golden Eagle 53, outfitted with a GPS backpack (designed to in no way interfere with this bird's natural behavior)
As it turns out, I'm fairly certain the Middle Earth Great eagles are an entirely different species from our golden eagles (although, probably in the same genus: Aquila). The mythical great eagles are pretty incredible and fun to watch on the big screen. Even so, I'd say we're pretty lucky to have an equally incredible bird here in our world.
"Nature is the standard of truth and beauty."
-Bernd Heinrich
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