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Sunday 16 November 2014

Eagle

The idea of using a bald eagle to symbolize America was proposed in 1782 when a drawing of the bird was presented to Congress. It was immediately accepted and five years later, the eagle was officially adopted as the emblem of the US.

Benjamin Franklin wrote to his daughter to tell her that he was unhappy that the bald eagle had been chosen as the national bird of the United States. The American constitution signee said that he wanted the turkey rather than the eagle to be the United States national symbol. He considered the eagle to be "a bird of bad moral character as it lives by shaping and robbing."

The eagle featured on U.S. currency was modeled on a real bald eagle named Peter who used to live on top of the U.S. Mint. After his death in 1836, Peter was stuffed and is still on display inside the very building upon which he once nested.

An eagle named Goldie created a national sensation  when he escaped from London Zoo for two weeks. He caused huge traffic jams around Regent's Park as thousands of people come to see him swooping from tree to tree.

Irish airline Aer Lingus flew an exhausted bald eagle back to the US on December 22, 1987 after storms blew it across the Atlantic Ocean. For its return trip, the eagle flew first-class aboard an Aer Lingus jet from Shannon Airport, in Ireland, where Prime Minister Charles Haughey gave it an official send-off.  “I wish Godspeed to our feathered friend. May he live long and happily in the wild, back in his natural habitat,” Haughey said,

The Harpy Eagle, Panama's national bird, is the biggest and most powerful of the eagles found in the Americas.

Male Harpy Eagle, shot at Parque das Aves, Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil. By http://www.birdphotos.com - Wikipedia Commons

An adult golden eagle's claw has nine times the grip of an adult human male's hand.

When a bald eagle loses a feather, it will automatically shed the same feather on it’s other side to maintain balance.

The American Bald Eagle sounds like a seagull. The mighty screech that is often dubbed over the image of a bald eagle is actually the cry of a Red Tailed Hawk.

When eagles swim, they do the breaststroke.

Eagles can view something the size of a rabbit from three miles away. They see more colors than humans, and can also see in the UV range of light (allowing them to see the urine trail of prey)

The Crowned Eagle is the only known bird to be confirmed as having viewing humans as prey.

An eagle can kill a young deer and fly away with it.

The sea eagle, Britain's largest bird of prey, was hunted to extinction in the UK with the last bird shot on Shetland in 1916. They were reintroduced to Scotland in the 1970s.

The Philippine eagle has an 8 ft wingspan making it the largest eagle in the world. It also known as the monkey-eating eagle, as it has been known to kill and carry off prey as large as deer and monkeys.

The word 'bald' in 'bald eagle' has nothing to do with the definition as a lack of hair. Rather, the term  comes from the Old English word 'piebald' meaning "white." It is in reference to their white heads and tail feathers in contrast to the darker color of the rest of their bodies.

Bald Eagles (see below) are so named because "balde" is an Old English word meaning "white."


Female bald eagles are 25 percent larger than males.

Bald eagles share parenting duties: The male and the female take turns incubating the eggs, and they both feed their young. They usually mate for life too.

For such a powerful bird, the call of the American Bald Eagle is surprisingly weak. It is usually a series of high-pitched whistling or piping notes.

The Bald Eagle is one of the greatest conservation success stories ever. Populations dwindled in the 1900's due to the insecticide DDT which caused eggs to break. After the banning of DDT, eagles can now be found in 49 out of 50 US states.

Eagles normally build their nests, called eyries, in tall trees or on high cliffs.

Bald eagles build the largest tree nests of any bird.

The collective noun for eagles is a convocation.

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