The Bald Eagle: The Improbable Journey of America's Bird

⚡️ 10 Quotes from the book

“Representing fidelity, self-reliance, strength, and courage, the founding bird quickly attained a vaunted perch in America’s iconography.”

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“Balds are endemic to North America; they live nowhere else in the wild.”

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“The bald eagle seemed fated for its position as founding bird. It was the picture of the nation’s full-fledged independence and sovereignty. As the Great Seal’s central figure, Haliaeetus leucocephalus gave the national emblem standing in heraldry and among the seals of other nations.”

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“The bald eagle was also the exemplar of North American nature, the basis of a distinct national identity, one that bespoke exceptionalism. Linking nature with national identity was one of its most important roles as a symbol.”

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“Birds are masterpieces of nature. The fluid beauty in their colors and physical form is living art. Their every subtle and conspicuous movement—the undulating traverse of the wren, the high step of the heron, the dance of the crane, and the contemplative blink of the owl—is poetry.”

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“Humans had made the world confusing for the bald eagle. They had saddled the top predator with an undeserved reputation for being a tyrant and shameless coward, and ornithologists had affirmed that reputation. Yet, paradoxically, Americans had also put the bald eagle up on a symbolic perch, where it asserted the ennobling virtues of a great nation.”

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“Americans forced the bald eagle to exist in virtual parallel universes. In one, it was a heart-beating species: chick, juvenile, parent—a dynamic of nature. In the other, it was symbol, metaphor, icon, avatar—a manufactured article, such as a stamped button, bronze casting, or painted image. In one universe people hunted it down; in the other, the Americanization of popular culture raised it up.”

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“It also suggests a third universe, in which the bald eagle dwelled—a spiritual universe, or world, known to Native cultures of North America. It was a world where the bird with the white head and tail was neither pest nor predator.”

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“Still, as long as animals are not polluted or shot out of a healthy habitat, they can generally tolerate the presence of the human species. It’s humans who take less kindly to coexistence.”

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“The story of the experience of bald eagles as America’s bird is a study in awareness, transformation, and commitment. It is a story that can help us navigate unprecedented environmental challenges that have arrived decisively in the twenty-first century, alongside the bald eagles’ comeback. It is a story of possibilities.”

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