On my watch – How Our Now Plentiful Bald Eagle Soon to Rise to its Proper Status
By Anne W. Semmes
Thanks to reading “Living Bird” magazine published by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, I came upon the story, “A Bill to Officially Make the Bald Eagle America’s Bird.” What??? Hasn’t that bird been representing this country for over 300 years? Well, perhaps before this story is published it will officially become the National Bird as the U.S. Senate has recently passed on such legislation to name Haliaeetus leucocephalus – the Bald Eagle – as the national bird of the United States. And it looks like the House has enough support to follow suit – any day now.
But haven’t we seen that Bald Eagle on the back of our dollar bill for eons? Stitched onto military uniforms, perched atop flagstaffs! And what about the Great Seal of the United States? So placed in 1782 by the Continental Congress! If you look closely, you’ll see the messages that mighty bird image with outstretched wings brings: its right talon holds an olive branch, symbolizing peace, and its left talon holds 13 arrows referring to 13 original states. Together those symbols are said to address the United States as having “a strong desire for peace but will always be ready for war”! And clutched in the Eagle’s beak is a scroll with the motto e pluribus unum – “Out of Many, One.”
That Bald Eagle has been carrying a lot of responsibility for this country for a lot of years! Certainly more than the now National Mammal – the Bison, the National Tree – the Oak, and the National Flower – the Rose!
And with all that responsibility the Bald Eagle nearly disappeared! Congress did step in in 1940 to pass “Landmark” legislation to protect Bald Eagles from “willful harm.” But by 1963 after the arrival of DDT, there were only 400 plus nesting pairs counted across the U.S. Thanks to the EPA banning DDT in 1972, the Bald Eagle population has continued to thrive to nearly half a million. And once a rare visitor, the Bald Eagle is now a familiar sight in Greenwich, from Greenwich Point to Belle Haven to Byram Beach.
Ryan MacLean, having welcomed all to the 2024 Hawk Watch reported last fall’s Hawk Watch brought a migrating “446 Bald Eagles which was a record season!” As of this writing, 148 had been counted in this hawk watch season but Ryan predicts that number to increase before seasons end.
Ryan reminds that “Bald Eagles are not hawks but both are birds of prey, or raptors, in the Accipitridae family. They are much larger than hawks, with longer wingspans and heavier bodies. A bald eagle can grow up to 38 inches long with a wingspan of 80 inches, while a red-tailed hawk can grow up to 22 inches long with a wingspan of 53 inches.”
And mind when the climate gets too cold some of those Bald Eagles will fly further south, just like some persons on the ground in Greenwich. But an addendum to that – Cynthia Ehlinger, who leads the First Sunday walks at Greenwich Point, did count in the 2021 Christmas Bird Count (CBC) 21 Bald Eagles. “It was not our highest (26),” she tells, “But a respectable number considering it was not until 2017 that we broke into double digits for Eagles on the CBC.”
So, what was the impetus that has led to Congress finally addressing officially the Bald Eagle as our national bird? Mr. Preston Cook, the author of the 2019 book “American Eagle: Visual History of our National Emblem,” kicked it off. Having collected some 40,000 artifacts dealing with that Eagle, the former San Franciscan created in 2022 “The Preston Cook American Eagle Collection in Wabasha, Minnesota, known as “Eagle Capital of America.”
Long story short in 2023, finding no “congressional action or presidential proclamation that it is our national bird,” Cook presented “a very simple piece of legislation” requesting such that he sent to his local congressman and to U.S Senator Amy Klobuchar. And the rest is almost history.
