Progress so far

I decided to go back to the slower flapping version as it felt easier to animate in.

After I was satisfied with the wing flaps, I started with the up and down movement of the body. (blogger does not want to properly link these for some reason)

The feathers just fixed themselves sometimes, and I chose to ignore them in hopes they will fix themselves.

They did, every so often.

This one is where I made sure the head was as level as it could be compared to the movement of the body.

I tweaked the feet to give it a more natural feel as well as rotating the body a tiny amount.

I wanted to have the eagle flap a few times before soaring, so that was my next step and I cycled all the keyframes, then baked them so I had 3 wing flaps and stopped the cycle to work on the gliding part.

The next step was to animate the eagle coming out of the wings beating down into a glide with the wings outstretched. When I chose to bake the animation I kept half a wing flap where it was coming down to mid-point. I started with the wings to move slightly as birds don't keep them still in a glide, then worked on the body movement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_3L9CuiAY4&feature=youtu.be