Great Eagles

The Great Eagles are the birds of Manwë, lord of the Valar, who is said to have devised them, and they are often named the Eagles of Manwë. They are sent out of the West to Middle-earth as his watchers, keeping an eye on the exiled Noldor and on the Enemy in the north. They serve as his messengers and his spies, and their sight is said to pierce anything solid save the darkness of Morgoth's deepest pits. Thorondor is their king, and his people keep their eyries first among the northern peaks and afterwards on the Crissaegrim, the crags about the hidden city of Gondolin, whose king counts them friends and whose valley they keep clear of spies. By the time of The Hobbit many live in the north of Wilderland, east of the Misty Mountains, where the greatest of their eyries is the Great Shelf.