Over a 20-year period I looked after about 60 injured bald eagles. They still remember me.
On quiet autumn or spring days, I sometimes stand outside my home, drinking in the sky, wind, harbour, and a myriad of trees. A lone migrant bald eagle occasionally wings ponderously up the harbour. It veers off course, beating inland the 300 odd metres (1,000 feet) for the house. I watch as the bird soars downward in tighter circles over my head, descending as low as 15 metres (50 feet). Our eyes meet. Soon its wing beats resume, breaking the spell; propelling the bearer back to the harbour to resume the journey.
Eagle imagery has been infused into many civilizations. For the Greeks it was a symbol of Zeus. In the 6th century BC, the Emperor Belshazzar of Babylon adopted the eagle as an emblem. So did the eastern Roman Empire, Charlemagne and a series of European emperors.
The eagle's reputation ran temporarily aground as a proposed national symbol for the United States. Noting that bald eagles scavenge dead animals, Benjamin Franklin concluded: "The (bald) eagle is a bird of bad moral character who does not get his living honestly." Franklin detested the fact that eagles stole fish from ospreys. He proposed the wild turkey as an alternative. Few folks gobbled that one. Turkeys were rejected as "pompous."
The "bald" in bald eagle (from the Welsh origin "balde") meant white or white-faced in an earlier time. The scientific name, Haliaeetus leucocephalus, means "sea eagle with white head." The species fares well on Canada's Pacific coast. In recent times North American bald eagle populations are finding an eastern stronghold in Atlantic Canada. Older rural easterners may recall another legacy of the past-shotguns by the door to protect coveted chickens, ducks and other farm animals against hated hawks, eagles and owls. One irate eastern Nova Scotia farmer informed me that a bald eagle had flown off with his 180-kilogram (400 lb) pig. An eagle's wingspan of 2.4 metres may be impressive, but such a feat is impossible. Heavier female bald eagles weigh at most about 6.8 kg (15 lb).
Old legends live on...perhaps pigs can fly!
Bald eagles need a feeding territory, a nest tree and a mate. Harbours, coastlines, offshore islands, and inland lakes and rivers with food potential are candidate sites. White pines and poplars frequently have limb structures that will accommodate the construction of large nests. The two sexes look alike, but males are smaller than females, and once paired, they tend to stick together. Youngsters are various shades of brown for about five years until they acquire the white head and tail plumage of adults. Eagles have hollow bones, which shrink with age, so that youngsters may actually be bigger than adults.
In the mid-1970s I built my home in Pomquet, NS, across the harbour from an island with an eagle nest. The eagles' activity could be seen with a spotting scope from my dining room window. Currents in the harbour kept some water open all winter long, attracting ducks. This year-round food source meant that the eagles in Pomquet were around their nest every month of the year. Most pairs around the Bras d'Or Lakes in Cape Breton move to mainland Nova Scotia when the lakes freeze. In the past three winters Bras d'Or has stayed open, a fact that may help more eagles reside there all year. Wintering eagles in Atlantic Canada seek out waterfowl, deer carcasses left by coyotes, tomcod spawning around cracks in river ice, farm offal and dumps. It seems to me that they travel loosely spread out at high altitudes, watching and listening for telltale cries of ravens and crows. When an eagle spies an opportunity and stays on the ground, the soaring chorus line follows. This would explain why a fish truck that overturned one February day was hosting 23 dining eagles shortly after the accident.
Studies elsewhere suggest that only half of first-year eagles survive to the following spring. For mated pairs, late winter is the time for nest refurbishing. An eagle will land on a tree, grasp one limb with its beak, another with its talons, and proceed to shake violently until one branch breaks! Eagle nests can reach six metres (20 ft) deep, three metres (9.5 ft) across, weigh more than 900 kilograms, and persist for more than 50 years! Pairs often stay together in a territory until one dies. Then another mate is taken, or a new pair may take over the site. Youngsters raised in previous years return for parental visits, and will help protect nestlings.
How well do eagles see? I met one biologist in Blacksburg, Va., who had attached heart monitors to them in the course of his research. One eagle nest overlooked a highway. If someone else drove the Fish & Wildlife Dept. truck down the road, nothing happened. When he drove the truck up the highway, however, the heart monitor reading started to race a mile and a quarter (2 km) before he reached the nest! That particular eagle remembered him, remained upset by the capture experience, and could see at that distance through the truck window! Eagles don't have magnified vision; they simply see more detail.
Bald eagles and other birds of prey are now protected by law. My regional biologist position in the 1970s and '80s brought many calls when folks found an eagle that someone had shot.
My most vivid recollection is of a pair shot one late May near Giant's Lake, Guysborough County. We could not locate the nest to save the young, but the injured eagles had been found along a dirt road. The male was wing-shot and never flew again. The female was shot in the leg. I took them immediately to a veterinarian. The female received long-term and short-term antibiotics, an anti-swelling compound and we taped her leg. I released her in a small harbour where a friend lived. She caught the wind and headed back the 40 kilometres (25 miles) to Giants Lake, where concerned residents soon reported an eagle with a bandage on one foot and a band on the other. That was good.
One week later, in early June, my astonished friend called from her home. The female had crash-landed and was standing on the shore where I had released her. Sick again from the wounds, she had abandoned her nest to fly the 40 kilometres back for help. She spent much of the summer recovering in a pen behind my house. She was no pet, but never tried to hurt me. As her leg healed, her wings grew weak from inadequate exercise. I began leaving the pen door open until one day in early August, she jumped into the air, beat across the orchard, over the forest, caught the wind and soared away.
I will never forget her intelligence, patience, or the look she sometimes gave me.