Blog #7 On Eagles

Driving down the John Day River valley during the winter can be rather depressing. The cold saps the life out of the cottonwoods, looking like bones along the freezing river. The summer hay grass has been mowed down by the horses and Red Angus cows and bulls in an effort to survive the cold snap. Even though the sun is shining, its glare from the snowy mountains is a constant reminder of the coldest months still to come. But sitting among the bones of the cottonwoods, the sun's rays catch another snow cap. Not on a mountain, but on a majestic bald eagle.
Once a member of the endangered species list due to the overwhelming use of DDT in the mid-to-late 20th century, this powerful bird is roughly the size of your average six-person Thanksgiving Day turkey. Who knows, maybe we would have eaten eagle if Ben Franklin had his way and picked the turkey to be the national bird of America. With a wingspan that would be able to dunk a basketball, she is easily seen as it hunts fish, waterfowl, sometimes even small mammals as large as a small fawn. Unlike mammals, the female exhibits size advantages over the males, but she is willing to mate with him for a lifetime, returning year after year to the same nesting area to breed and raise their young. She was taught as an eaglet to tear into the flesh of her meal and to practice flying while she fought off attacks from her brother and sister to be the only survivor of her brood. She found shelter from her parent's wing only in bad weather. At only 72 days old at the heat of summer she was forced by her parents to finally leave the nest and set out on her own adventure, meeting her hawk and eagle cousins on her journeys from Florida to Alaska and California to Newfoundland and Labrador. She will never leave North America, just like her ancient ancestors never did. She has no family on other continents of the world. Beginning a family will not happen until she is four and she will teach her eaglets how to survive, just as she learned.