Humans are funny creatures. Sometimes we’re drawn to particular ideas that have no physical presence in the world. Ideas like courage, loyalty, majesty, the love of nation. All things we can define, we can described, but we can’t physically grasp. Of course, this is why symbolism is so important. We pour those ideas into an image which then becomes the cultural shorthand to communicate the idea. And there is no bird more drenched in symbolism than this week’s bird.
The Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), the national bird of the United Stated of America.
Indeed, the bird has been Americanised to within an inch of its life.
The Bald Eagle became the US national emblem in 1782 when the official seal was adopted.
Since then all the virtues citizens of the US wish to associate with their nation have been imbued into this Eagle. Valour, courage, patriotism and the like. But of course, it is juts a bird, albeit, a particularly stunning bird.
But a bird none the less, with no ability to even conceive of the concepts foist upon it. And as no less a luminary than Benjamin Franklin pointed out, the Bald Eagle’s own nature does not necessarily align with those we created for it:
“I wish 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, 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.”
A lazy bully and a coward … well, maybe the Bald Eagle has become an apt emblem for America and its leaders after all.
But then again, lazy, dishonesty and cowardice are just other ideas not much different from the ones mentioned above. We should just let the Bald Eagle be a Bald Eagle, it seems to do a pretty alright job at that.
28/07/2019
Bird of the Week 