EAGLES in
Have you
ever wondered what it is like to fly free,
To see the World as far as the eye can see,
To view the surroundings from high and from low,
To hear only the sound of a distant echo,
To float in the air with the wind being your guide,
To admire rainbows that the trees tend to hide,
To see the misty mornings over a beautiful mountain
top
To glide over a flowing river that never seems to
stop,
To watch the animals from over a mile away,
Or rise above the treetops that glisten in the day,
If you were an eagle you would wonder no more,
For it can see things you have never seen before,
Next time you look into the sky of blue,
Think of what it is like from an eagle’s point of
view.
© Stacy
Smith
Perhaps no other bird in the country evokes such
mystery as the bald eagle, causing humans to wax poetic as in the
lovely poem above. They are the proud symbol of our
country, our heritage, our very freedom, and yet, in years gone by
we Americans
stood carelessly by while this bird hovered near extinction. In my home state
of
I have heard it said that conservationists are
standing in the way of “progress” in this country but, except for a few well
meaning organizations of “tree huggers,” this bird could have been forever lost
to Americans and their siblings.
May they always reign as masters of the air over “
Eagles frequently nest in southern pine trees, seemingly because they feel
secure below the canopy of green foliage that the evergreen trees afford. This
image shows a young chick learning to fly by climbing to tree limb perches
above the nest and leaping into the nest with great flapping of wings.
The female is
usually the larger of the two nesting birds making it easy to tell the gender
when the two birds are viewed together. It is much more difficult to discern
when the birds are viewed separately. Eagles mate for life, but when one dies
the survivor readily accepts another mate. Bald eagle calls are considered a
way of reinforcing the bond between the mates, and also to warn other eagles
and predators that an area is defended.
Weight of these birds will range from ten to fourteen
pounds. Their bones are hollow allowing the skeleton to weigh only about
one-half pound. The feathers alone weigh twice that much. Their average life
span is about 23 years in the wild, but one bird in New York was known to live
to forty years of age in captivity.
Bald eagles are strong flyers. Their wing span is
quite large and employs dynamics that would make the most seasoned of human
aircraft engineers drool at the mouth. Their incomparable eyesight and
maneuverability allows them to swoop into and out of the wooded canopy at great
rates of speed. The wings are both broad and long – up to 85 inches - to allow
for soaring on thermals allowing them to attain elevations up to 10,000
feet.
