A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger

Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident 

This photograph of a bald eagle was taken by my cousin Brad Berger near the southern shore of Lake Erie, east of Toledo. I have used it with his permission because it is magnificent, and also because I’m apparently incapable of taking a photograph of a bird. I lack the equipment, skill, patience and stealth. 

I had intended to write about the bald (“bald” used in a now obsolete sense, meaning  “white”) eagle as a bird, not as the symbol of the United States, but I find this impossible. The symbolism is too pervasive. For instance, how does one take note that the Bald Eagle is an “apex predator,” at the top of the food chain, and not see a connection? When this bird became central to the Great Seal of the United States in 1782, it was to compare the new nation with the Roman Republic, which often used the golden eagle. 

The bald eagle was severely endangered in the late twentieth century because of over-hunting and pesticides. Environmental regulation and enforcement enabled it to be removed from the list of threatened animals in 2007. Sea eagles that require large areas of water and very high trees, they can be seen almost anywhere locally. Their habitat includes all the United States, most of Canada and northern Mexico. 

Their nests are the largest in North America: some eight feet wide, thirteen feet deep and weighing over a ton. Bald Eagles can soar as high as ten thousand feet and dive at one hundred miles per hour. These powerful birds have a weak, chirping whistle, like a sea gull. Reminds me of Mike Tyson, large punch and small voice. 

This gigantic raptor was a sacred Native American symbol long before it perched on the Great Seal. Its feathers were used on ceremonial pipes and adornments, as a symbol of courage, wisdom and strength. The continent’s first people saw this eagle not just as an apex predator. It was a messenger to their Great Spirit. What message might the bald eagle carry today?