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Just before the big snow storm hit, I was out on the porch when
I spotted this guy.
So I ran in and grab the camera, not pleased with this first
picture I ran down the hill and over to the creek and shot the
second photo of him or her from below.
I was so glad the Eagle waited for me to get a good
photograph.
The Eagle became the National emblem in 1782 when the great seal
of the United States
was adopted. The Great Seal shows a wide-spread eagle, faced
front, having on his breast a shield with thirteen perpendicular
red and white stripes, surmounted by a blue field with the same
number of stars. In his right talon the eagle holds an olive
branch, in his left a bundle of thirteen arrows, and in his beak
he carries a scroll inscribed with the motto: "E Pluribus Unum."
The Eagle appears in the Seals of many of our States, on most of
our gold and silver coinage, and is used a great deal for
decorative patriotic purposes.
At the Second Continental Congress, after the thirteen
colonies voted to declare independence from Great Britain, the colonies
determined they needed an official seal. So Dr. Franklin, Mr. J.
Adams, and Mr. Jefferson as a committee prepared a device for a
Seal of the United States of America.
However, the only portion of the design accepted by the congress
was the statement E pluribus unum, attributed to Thomas
Jefferson.
Six years and two committees later, in May of 1782, the
brother of a
Philadelphia
naturalist provided a drawing showing an eagle displayed as the
symbol of "supreme power and authority."Congress liked the
drawing, so before the end of 1782, an eagle holding a bundle of
arrows in one talon and an olive branch in the other was
accepted as the seal. The image was completed with a shield of
red and white stripes covering the breast of the bird; a crest
above the eagle's head, with a cluster of thirteen stars
surrounded by bright rays going out to a ring of clouds; and a
banner, held by the eagle in its bill, bearing the words E
pluribus unum. Yet it was not until 1787 that the American
bald eagle was officially adopted as the emblem of the United States.
As the story goes Ben Franklin was in favor of the turkey.
He wrote: “I wish that the bald eagle had not been chosen
as the representative of our country, he is a bird of bad moral
character, he does not get his living honestly, you may have
seen him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for
himself, he watches the labor of the fishing-hawk, and when that
diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to
its nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald
eagle pursues him and takes it from him.... Besides he is a rank
coward; the little kingbird, not bigger than a sparrow attacks
him boldly and drives him out of the district. He is therefore
by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest. . . of
America.. . . For a truth, the
turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal
a true original native of America . . . a bird of courage, and
would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards,
who should presume to invade his farmyard with a red coat on.”
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