Bird of the Week: Bald Eagle
I know, I didn’t see this one coming either.
A news item crossed my desk earlier this week that made me stop in my tracks (aka stop scrolling). According to the AP headline, “American bald eagles are having a moment, ecologically and culturally.”
I relayed this to Jack, who had the appropriate reaction:
Despite this truth, I persevered (clicked) and found out that the packaging here isn’t totally ridiculous. The piece cites the fact that bald eagles are back from the brink of annihilation from hunting and DDT and are off the endangered species list. That’s great! They also just officially became the national bird of the U.S. Huh? Yes! This is truly what Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar were doing instead of literally anything else. Not sure what functional purpose this official designation serves, especially at this moment in time, but I guess it probably helps maintain their conservation status? So, yeah, sure.
Upon completion, I clicked out of the article, content with the knowledge I’d acquired. Then I had an absolutely perverse thought: Bald eagle… Bird of the Week? Hah, never, I laughed. Or…maybe? Yes, it was a real kombucha girl meme moment. My own knee-jerk reaction of disgust made me stop and check myself. Have I spent my life in mostly blind hatred and disloyalty to this bird simply because some men a couple hundred years ago decided it would symbolize America?? I can’t live my life that way. I needed to give this bird a proper glance.
Yep, the Bird of the Week is the bald eagle! We will not cut off our noses to spite our face here!! We WILL appreciate this bird despite the horrible symbolism that’s been bestowed upon it without its consent. Let’s go.
Bald eagles inhabit Canada, the continental United States, and Mexico, and are the only sea eagle in North America. As such, they often live near bodies of water and primarily eat fish, though they are not self-limiting when it comes to their diet and will also dine on small mammals and reptiles.
You know what a bald eagle looks like so I won’t waste time there, but I will emphasize that these birds are freaking huge, weighing up to 14 pounds with a wingspan of up to eight feet. They’ve also got the nests to match—usually about five feet in diameter and three feet deep, but sometimes bigger!! And lest you think their heft would get in the way of their ability to fly with the greatest of ease, think again: bald eagles can reach speeds of up to 40 mph and cruise at an altitude of 10,000 feet. They can also live for decades, enjoying their enormous corporeal forms and flapping around the friendly skies. Here are a couple of active live cams (in California and Florida) if you want to see them and their nests in action:
I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about the visual characteristics of the bald eagle, but one thing I wanted to note is that while they do tend to look quite stern, austere, and frankly, authoritarian, the more I scrolled through photos the more I found myself laughing at how more often than not, they’re serving an incredible mix of fierce AND goofy.
Sometimes they look vampiric…
…and sometimes they straight up look like a man in a bird suit.
I don’t entirely know what lesson to take from this, but my deep dive has taught me that if your resting visage reads as MAD, you will occasionally also look silly as hell.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that bald eagles unfortunately do exhibit some extremely American qualities, like stealing other animals’ catches and acting in opportunistic ways. They’re scavengers at heart! They tend to live with a lone wolf attitude but are also monogamous (Puritans!) and Benjamin Franklin himself fought against naming the bald eagle as the national bird, in favor of the wild turkey. This quote from him on the matter is honestly quite funny:
For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.
With all this injustice, he is never in good case but like those among men who live by sharping and robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district.
I would also be remiss not to say that many Native American tribes revered the bald eagle long before any of these fools started arguing about it.
Ultimately bald eagles are rad birds just like any other eagle, and they’ve sadly been saddled with the horrible burden of representing the ideals of a country that doesn’t actually care about those ideals, or have any sense of itself in general. As we’ve learned time and time again, we the people suck—the birds do not.
On a handful of occasions, I’ve had the good fortune of seeing a wild bald eagle near the lakes of northern Michigan, and each time it’s sincerely filled me with awe. Despite the Sam Eagle lens that’s been forced upon me, the splendor of these birds breaks through. They truly are a stunning sight. Thinking on it now, it kind of reminds me of when I saw Pope Francis during a New York City visit in 2015. I didn’t expect to feel much of anything at all, but then he passed by and the enormous crowd lining Fifth Avenue went fully quiet and it was weirdly charged in a good way?? With the eagles, that sense of wonder and holiness is due to their inherent majesty. With the pope I think it was the popemobile and the blinding white robes that did it.
In other words, it’s not patriotism or courage I feel when observing these animals, but something entirely divorced from anything like the idea of a country, government, or sense of loyalty to a concept. It’s pure appreciation for the thing itself. Bald eagles are better than what they represent. They are simply and gloriously themselves, and that is a beautiful thing.
*I’d like to note that I did briefly consider choosing an owl for Superb Owl weekend, but then I remembered I don’t like football. Also I only just found out the Philadelphia Eagles are playing in the game, so that is just a coincidence! But in the broadest sense of the phrase, yes, go birds.
A reminder: you can check out our complete Bird of the Week list here, and get in touch with your bird suggestions at hello@discourseblog.com.
I see bald eagles on a fairly regular basis and the only thing I'd like to add is that the noises they make are absolutely pathetic. Baby gull noises coming out of that enormous majestic bird. "Wehhh," says the eight-foot wingspan giant on his way to steal a fish from a hardworking osprey. Wonderful stuff!
I've lived in Oakland, CA - one of America's favorite hellholes, according to many in the media and on the right! - for 44 years, and in all that time have never seen a bald eagle. But last month, my wife and our neighbors saw TWO of the big birds perched in the trees behind our house. And we live in the flats, not the hills, so yes - they indeed seem to be having a moment.