In the case of a protected species, those concerns include the details of the law. While you don't need to know the answers to these to photograph a bald eagle, those who do will have more and better photo opportunities without interfering in the lives of their subjects. When I first wanted to photograph bald eagles up close and personal a dozen years ago, I started by looking around in my home state of Maine. My First Rule of Wildlife Photography states that no telephoto lens exists that can offset a lack of technique in getting close to the critters. But, you see, it's against the law to approach close enough to most bald eagle nests for photographs you'd be happy with, even with the 700mm of firepower I can muster.
Rare exceptions occur where eagles have decided to nest near roadways in some specific locations.
I hoped to find a nest that I could get close enough to without causing the eagles any harm. But in Maine, the closest distance one can get to any nest tree even today remains about 300 feet. Since nest sites were out, I decided to look for feeding eagles. That gave me lots of territory to cover - too much for productive camera hunting. Since over winter bald eagles need open water to catch fish, I figured that the best time to camera hunt for close-ups of this species might be during the cold of the Maine winter.