Big Bird

 

I was headed home one day last winter.  It was bitter cold so the puddles in all the fields next to the road were frozen solid.  The geese that pass through the area each year were gone for the most part.  There were a few, here and there, the ones that were too exhausted by the long journey to go on or had died during their rest stop.

But my eyes quickly centered on signs of life being wrenched from the waste of death.

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My regular readers understand that I don’t believe nature wastes anything.  No matter what humans believe, nature has a use for everything…even dead things.  Only humans regularly short circuit that process by putting their dead in a sealed casket to keep nature from taking its course.

Anyway, my own opinions about death aside, nature was doing its thing in the field.  Geese that had died, for whatever reason, natural or man-caused, were lying about.  Some of them were sitting in the mud quietly but others were a flurry of activity as arguably the most beautiful species in the U.S. was doing what it does best, cleaning up dead things.

Some of you are scratching your heads now, wondering what idiot thinks vultures are beautiful.  Or some may be thinking I mean opossums or coyotes.  But none of those is what I’m referring to.

I’m talking about bald eagles.

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That’s right, the beautiful, graceful emblem of our nation gets a huge proportion of its food by cleaning up dead things.  In fact, the sources of information I checked for this post gave equal weight to carrion and fish as the top food sources for bald eagles.

They eat small animals, reptiles, and bugs, as well as catching rare larger critters like fawns and lambs, but all those put together don’t equal the shear poundage of fish and dead things they devour.

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I find bald eagles not only beautiful but quite interesting as well.  Like us, they mate for life but, if one partner dies, the survivor will often “remarry”.  Also like us, the pair will search until they find a home-site that is just right for them.  They will pick a big, strong tree that will support the huge nests eagles build.  When I say huge, I’m talking about a structure made of twigs and sticks that may be 13 feet deep and eight feet across.

The one to three eggs the couple produces each year are well cared for but it is still rare for all three chicks to survive to adulthood.  When they leave the nest, the immature eagles appear all brown but actually have white speckles that can be difficult for the viewer to see from a distance.  They reach maturity at four or five years of age, which is when they normally develop their adult plumage, a dark brown with the famous “bald” white head as well as a white tail.

The appearance of the younger birds may be confusing for some viewers, leading the birds to be mistaken for their cousin, the golden eagle, but it’s hard to confuse that famous adult plumage.

The grown bald eagle may be three feet long from the tip of the beak to the end of the tail and have a wingspan of seven feet.  That makes for an imposing bird, especially if you are driving down the road like I was about 25 years ago.  I didn’t see one beside the road until it suddenly took flight and flapped those huge wings as it tried to gain altitude to avoid my swiftly approaching vehicle.

We avoided one another but I had the distinct impression of passing close beneath a low-flying airplane.

Yeah.

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Don’t mistake the bird’s lack of concern at my approach for poor eye sight.  You’ve probably heard someone called “eagle-eyed”.  That expression was born for a good reason; eagles are among the most sharp-sighted animals on the planet.  From three miles away you or I might be able to identify a motorcycle if the light was right and the bike was moving.  From the same distance, an eagle can pick out a rabbit moving through grass.

Not bad, huh?

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At the time North America was first settled by Europeans there were an estimated 20,000 breeding pairs nesting in what is now the lower 48 states, but by the 1950s there were only 3,000 pairs remaining.  Their numbers were reduced due to numerous causes, including shooting, but mostly by eagles ingesting poisons.  This includes lead from shot shells and fishing sinkers as well as insecticides.  Because of their position as an apex predator, those poisons accumulated in their bodies from eating animals that had ingested the chemicals.

Man may have been the cause of the great reductions in the birds’ numbers, but he was also the means of their salvation.  Laws passed banning the use of lead shot and some pesticides, as well as protecting the species from shooting were very effective.

By 2010 the number of breeding pairs in the lower 48 had increased to 10,000.

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One of the first eagles I ever saw in the wild was nearly 30 years ago.  I was driving in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, paralleling a long lake that had no humans on it.  The road I was on didn’t have many either.  My eyes caught movement above the water and I looked over to see a bald eagle flying almost as fast as I was driving.  In the few seconds I was able to watch the big bird swoop down as if it was going to dive into the lake.  Just before it hit the water it opened its wings wide and turned to extend its talons and snatch a fish that must have weighed at least five pounds.  Powerful wings flapped and the bird flew away with its catch.  Despite how fast it had dived toward the surface, only its talons and the tips of its wings touched the water.

Wow.

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I would much rather see them swooping down to catch a fish, then flapping their strong wings to gain enough altitude to fly off and eat than standing over a rotting animal eating their fill.  But maybe that’s just me.  Nah, I don’t think so.

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I don’t believe our founding fathers could have picked a better symbol for our country than the strong, intelligent, incredibly beautiful bald eagle.  Long may he fly.

 

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(above) A short clip I put together from some video I got of bald eagles.  I also included the below images I took on a trip to Otter Slough, which is not too far from my house.