Today, I learned the reason why the Bald Eagle is the National Bird. (Page 2)

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2013-04-26 9:58 PM
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Subject: RE: Today, I learned the reason why the Bald Eagle is the National Bird.
GomesBolt - 2013-04-26 9:21 PM
Left Brain - 2013-04-26 9:16 PM
GomesBolt - 2013-04-26 4:02 PM

They are amazing animals.  I've had to learn a lot about them for my job. 

They can see their prey miles-away with perfect clarity and then they dive at hundreds of miles an hour and then place their talons exactly in the skull of their prey or into the water to pull a fish.  That unfortunately makes them pretty tunnel-visioned.  

They get what's called "Target Fixation" so they ignore every risk between them and their prey which can be unfortunate if their prey is across a highway or a train track. 

If you do see a dead one on the road, you should call the Fish and Wildlife Service.  They try to keep track of every eagle killed and they can use the dead for research (what are they eating, how are they breeding, etc.) 

Golden Eagles are even larger than Bald Eagles and have been known to carry-away mountain goats to their massive nests.

I heard also that the "Bald" part of the Bald Eagle is why we chose him instead of his golden counterpart. White Hair being synchronous with a "crown of wisdom."

There's a large Peregrine Falcon that hunts right outside my office window.  I have yet to see him kill one of the pigeons that hang-out on the ledge, but he's pretty fat so he clearly is an expert killer.  

Bottom line, all Birds of Prey are awesome.  

What switch wrote is much closer to the Bald Eagle's nature then that of a fearsome hunter.  In fact, if you want to see a really large concencentration of Eagles, go set up next to a trash dump in Alaska. In the winter, go to any lock and damn on the Mississippi......they "hunt" dead fish on the downriver side of the dams.

They cannot, in any way, be compared fairly to falcons.

Bald Eagles, as majestic as they look, much prefer food that is already dead to that which they "hunt".

Bald Eagles will Scavenge with the Vultures. But they actually eat far more fish than meat. Goldens eat very little fish, but they eat dead deer, elk, other animals all the time. Peregrines eat other birds almost exclusively so they are some of the coolest hunters.

I absolutely love Peregrines. The stoop is one of the most BA things around. If I could be an animal, Peregrine Falcon would be on my short list.

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