Bald Eagle

As a photographer, I have never seen a more noble face. It is hard to take a bad picture of one. Eagles have a unique status in the USA. They decorate money, documents, sports teams, and occasionally Tangerine Woods. If you can’t tell if that large bird overhead has a white head, it soars with its wings spread flat like a B-17. Vulture’s wings have a V-shape.

The bald eagle first appeared as an American symbol on a 1776 Massachusetts copper cent. The eagle was introduced for the design of Great Seal of the United States by Pennsylvania lawyer William Barton. Charles Thomson, secretary of Congress chose the design accepted in 1782 and adopted in 1787. Seems Congress was slow back then too. The story that Ben Franklin suggested the turkey is false, but he thought the bald eagle was “a bird of bad moral character”.

Florida has one of the densest concentrations of nesting bald eagles estimated at 1,500 pairs. Following the ban of the pesticide DDT in 1972, Florida's eagle population increased more than 300 percent over 24 years. The bald eagle is no longer an endangered species but continues to be protected by state and federal rules.

There is a great live "Southwest Florida Eagle Cam" on the web. (Search Google for that link) Information is at the bottom of that web page.

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