The bald eagle is the national bird of the United States. Bald eagles are strong, have great reflexes, and are the first indigenous birds of America, but that’s about all an average person knows.
Beyond a symbol of strength, the bald eagle itself has a long history within the Americas. Native Americans looked to the bird as a high being, incorporating it into many stories, symbols, and rituals. They cherished its tail feathers and used them in everything- headdresses to jewelry, or even for their arrows.
Even American explorers acknowledged this phenomenal bird. Lewis and Clark wrote extensively on bald eagles in their journals, describing multiple details on the bird like the wings.
One interesting thing observed by ornithologists is that female bald eagles can be 25% bigger than males, which remains a mystery to scientists. Bald eagles, like many predatory birds, mate for life. Once they’ve found a mate, the female tends to the nest while the male hunts for prey to provide for the chicks. A bald eagle nest, weighing over one hundred pounds, is colossal, reaching about two to four feet deep, and four to five feet wide. This provides a snug home for the enduring birds. While the chicks wait at home, the father searched for fish that lurk in the water. Bald eagles can swim and will do so when they catch a fish that’s too large to pluck out of the water. Otherwise, they drag their ‘victim’ to the shore.
Perhaps the most ironic thing is that bald eagles are not actually bald. The majestic bird has a full-feathered, brown head when he or she is young. Once they reach maturity, their feathers turn white, giving them a bald appearance.
Average eagles live up to thirty years, which is about 73 years in human age. Some eagles make it up to forty, and at that moment they must make a difficult decision. This is ten years after the bird should have already died, which results in their body becoming feeble. Their long and flexible talons can no longer grab their prey. The bird’s long and sharp beak becomes bent. Its old and aged wings stick to their chest, and eagles are no longer able to fly.
The bird is left with two options: die or go through the process of Change, which lasts 150 days. The eagle, using its remaining bit of strength, flies to the mountain top, and knocks its beak on a rock until the beak is plucked out. The beak is made of keratin, like our fingernails, and will continue to grow even if broken. Once it grows back, they go through the same process. The same thing applies to the eagle’s talons. They pluck out their talons, wait for them to regrow, and repeat this process.
To pluck these out is extremely painful and difficult, but it is an eagle’s way of giving back to the environment. Many times, in order to survive, we must go through a change process. We sometimes need to get rid of old memories, habits, and other past traditions. We are only freed from the past burdens can we take advantage of the present. Maybe it is this that the United States also wants to portray.
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In February, my family and I took a road trip to Monterey Bay. We caught a tour boat and headed towards a reservoir and a natural discovery museum. There were many animals like spiked shore crabs, sea angels, sea otters, and broad-nose seven gill sharks. But that wasn’t what we came for.
As the boat skidded across the water, I watched the white foam trail behind us. Surrounding the reservoir were sequoia, coast redwood, and cedar trees. The guide turned the wheel and clicked a few buttons. The buzzing motor stopped, and we floated to the museum.
The guide let us off the boat, and we stepped into the museum. The museum smelled of damp wormy dirt. The guide started to introduce himself and handed out small headsets and a flat remote of some kind. When you pressed a button, a boring narrative about an animal would start. Not to mention, the speech was also tedious, and the headphones were a very poor quality. I dropped my head and paced around. I sat on the chairs and thought about what food I wanted to eat. My mom came around and introduced me to an “interesting” rainbow fish.
I forced a smile. “Cool. That fish is beautiful and does rad stuff,” I muttered.
“Yes! There’s a model of the fish right there! Shall we take a picture?” my mom replied as she took her phone out of her pocket.
Not again. Why are all moms obsessed with pictures?
“Ugh, mom, this is boring. I read this already in a book, seriously?” I responded.
“Me and your dad drove you an hour to come to this museum, and you came here to complain. Let’s go back.”
“Correction: Your dad and I,” I told her.
A pointless argument started, but it was eventually mediated. After twenty minutes, my mom said we could start to hike. I sat on the side thinking about how I could get her to listen to me. Museums were tiring. All you do is pace around and look at stuff. I nearly fell asleep on the museum chair, but I didn’t want to snore.
Finally, the hike began. It was a two-mile round trip. Surrounding us were many mosquitoes and noisy birds that constantly cawed. The hike was still dull and couldn’t lift my blank mood. After hiking for an hour, we reached the mountaintop. There stayed what seemed like an aged eagle, who was pecking at a rock. A pool of blood swarmed below him. I wondered why this had happened. Why was the eagle torturing himself?
Maybe my mom’s small blabber in the museum was helpful.
There was a display board in the museum, and I will always vividly remember the words on it, explaining that eagles go into a state called Change. Most eagles die by the age of thirty, but some live to longer, even ten years more than they are meant to live. This provides the bird with a difficult decision: they can choose to die or go through the process of Change, which lasts 150 days. The eagle, using its little bit of strength, flies to the mountain top, and knocks its beak on a rock until the beak is plucked out. The beak is made of keratin like our fingernails and will continue to grow even if broken. Once it grows back, they go through the same process. The same thing applies to the eagle’s talons. They pluck out their talons, wait for them to regrow, and repeat this process.
To pluck these out would be extremely painful and difficult but it is an eagle’s way of giving back to the environment. Many times, in order to survive, we must go through a change process. We sometimes need to get rid of old memories, habits, and other past traditions. Only freed from the past burdens can we take advantage of the present.
I took some time, focusing on the eagle, and introspecting with myself. Maybe I need to let go of things. Maybe I need to change myself for a better lifestyle. Perhaps, after doing that, I would be able to take advantage of the present. This would be a hard change, just as it is for the eagle. What I thought was a humdrum hike would turn out to teach me a very important life lesson.
Beyond a symbol of strength, the bald eagle itself has a long history within the Americas. Native Americans looked to the bird as a high being, incorporating it into many stories, symbols, and rituals. They cherished its tail feathers and used them in everything- headdresses to jewelry, or even for their arrows.
Even American explorers acknowledged this phenomenal bird. Lewis and Clark wrote extensively on bald eagles in their journals, describing multiple details on the bird like the wings.
One interesting thing observed by ornithologists is that female bald eagles can be 25% bigger than males, which remains a mystery to scientists. Bald eagles, like many predatory birds, mate for life. Once they’ve found a mate, the female tends to the nest while the male hunts for prey to provide for the chicks. A bald eagle nest, weighing over one hundred pounds, is colossal, reaching about two to four feet deep, and four to five feet wide. This provides a snug home for the enduring birds. While the chicks wait at home, the father searched for fish that lurk in the water. Bald eagles can swim and will do so when they catch a fish that’s too large to pluck out of the water. Otherwise, they drag their ‘victim’ to the shore.
Perhaps the most ironic thing is that bald eagles are not actually bald. The majestic bird has a full-feathered, brown head when he or she is young. Once they reach maturity, their feathers turn white, giving them a bald appearance.
Average eagles live up to thirty years, which is about 73 years in human age. Some eagles make it up to forty, and at that moment they must make a difficult decision. This is ten years after the bird should have already died, which results in their body becoming feeble. Their long and flexible talons can no longer grab their prey. The bird’s long and sharp beak becomes bent. Its old and aged wings stick to their chest, and eagles are no longer able to fly.
The bird is left with two options: die or go through the process of Change, which lasts 150 days. The eagle, using its remaining bit of strength, flies to the mountain top, and knocks its beak on a rock until the beak is plucked out. The beak is made of keratin, like our fingernails, and will continue to grow even if broken. Once it grows back, they go through the same process. The same thing applies to the eagle’s talons. They pluck out their talons, wait for them to regrow, and repeat this process.
To pluck these out is extremely painful and difficult, but it is an eagle’s way of giving back to the environment. Many times, in order to survive, we must go through a change process. We sometimes need to get rid of old memories, habits, and other past traditions. We are only freed from the past burdens can we take advantage of the present. Maybe it is this that the United States also wants to portray.
———————————————————————————————————————
In February, my family and I took a road trip to Monterey Bay. We caught a tour boat and headed towards a reservoir and a natural discovery museum. There were many animals like spiked shore crabs, sea angels, sea otters, and broad-nose seven gill sharks. But that wasn’t what we came for.
As the boat skidded across the water, I watched the white foam trail behind us. Surrounding the reservoir were sequoia, coast redwood, and cedar trees. The guide turned the wheel and clicked a few buttons. The buzzing motor stopped, and we floated to the museum.
The guide let us off the boat, and we stepped into the museum. The museum smelled of damp wormy dirt. The guide started to introduce himself and handed out small headsets and a flat remote of some kind. When you pressed a button, a boring narrative about an animal would start. Not to mention, the speech was also tedious, and the headphones were a very poor quality. I dropped my head and paced around. I sat on the chairs and thought about what food I wanted to eat. My mom came around and introduced me to an “interesting” rainbow fish.
I forced a smile. “Cool. That fish is beautiful and does rad stuff,” I muttered.
“Yes! There’s a model of the fish right there! Shall we take a picture?” my mom replied as she took her phone out of her pocket.
Not again. Why are all moms obsessed with pictures?
“Ugh, mom, this is boring. I read this already in a book, seriously?” I responded.
“Me and your dad drove you an hour to come to this museum, and you came here to complain. Let’s go back.”
“Correction: Your dad and I,” I told her.
A pointless argument started, but it was eventually mediated. After twenty minutes, my mom said we could start to hike. I sat on the side thinking about how I could get her to listen to me. Museums were tiring. All you do is pace around and look at stuff. I nearly fell asleep on the museum chair, but I didn’t want to snore.
Finally, the hike began. It was a two-mile round trip. Surrounding us were many mosquitoes and noisy birds that constantly cawed. The hike was still dull and couldn’t lift my blank mood. After hiking for an hour, we reached the mountaintop. There stayed what seemed like an aged eagle, who was pecking at a rock. A pool of blood swarmed below him. I wondered why this had happened. Why was the eagle torturing himself?
Maybe my mom’s small blabber in the museum was helpful.
There was a display board in the museum, and I will always vividly remember the words on it, explaining that eagles go into a state called Change. Most eagles die by the age of thirty, but some live to longer, even ten years more than they are meant to live. This provides the bird with a difficult decision: they can choose to die or go through the process of Change, which lasts 150 days. The eagle, using its little bit of strength, flies to the mountain top, and knocks its beak on a rock until the beak is plucked out. The beak is made of keratin like our fingernails and will continue to grow even if broken. Once it grows back, they go through the same process. The same thing applies to the eagle’s talons. They pluck out their talons, wait for them to regrow, and repeat this process.
To pluck these out would be extremely painful and difficult but it is an eagle’s way of giving back to the environment. Many times, in order to survive, we must go through a change process. We sometimes need to get rid of old memories, habits, and other past traditions. Only freed from the past burdens can we take advantage of the present.
I took some time, focusing on the eagle, and introspecting with myself. Maybe I need to let go of things. Maybe I need to change myself for a better lifestyle. Perhaps, after doing that, I would be able to take advantage of the present. This would be a hard change, just as it is for the eagle. What I thought was a humdrum hike would turn out to teach me a very important life lesson.