National Bird Day
Blog Prompt: Today is National Bird Day. What is your favorite bird and why?
Wow, this is an interesting prompt today. I’ve never really thought about what my favorite bird would be. But when I think about all the birds in this world and the one that would mean the most to be, it would be our nations bird, The Bald Eagle. The struggles this bird went through the past years, just amazes me. So, I had to look up some facts about how our national bird was chosen.
As the National bird of the United States
The Bald Eagle is the national bird of the United States of America. It is one of the country’s most recognizable symbols, and appears on most of its official seals, including the Seal of the President of the United States.
The Continental Congress adopted the current design for the Great Seal of the United States including a Bald Eagle grasping thirteen arrows and a thirteen-leaf olive branch with its talons on June 20, 1782.
After the end of the [[American Revolutionary War, Benjamin Franklin wrote a famous letter from Paris in 1784, to his daughter, criticizing the choice and suggesting the Wild Turkey as a better representative of American qualities. He described the Bald Eagle as "a Bird of bad moral character," who, "too lazy to fish for himself" survived by robbing the Osprey. He called the Bald Eagle "a rank Coward" easily driven from a perch by the much smaller king bird. In the letter, Franklin wrote the Turkey is, "a much more respectable Bird," which he described as "a little vain & silly [but] a Bird of Courage.
The Bald Eagle remained the emblem of the United States. It can be found on both national seals and on the back of several coins (including the Quarter (U.S. coin) dollar coin until 1999), with its head oriented towards the olive branch. Between 1916 and 1945, the Presidential Flag showed an eagle facing to its left (the viewer’s right), which gave rise to the urban legend that the seal is changed to have the eagle face towards the olive branch in peace, and towards the arrows in wartime.
I thought this was very interesting how the eagle was decided to be our national symbol. Just think, we could’ve had the turkey as our national bird.
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Julie Marie Designs has the cutest wintry kit out right now called Winter Majesty. I love all the blues and the elements are just beautiful. I also used her Date Strips.
Did you know that Ben Franklin pushed for the Turkey to be our National Bird? Can you imagine? LOL!
I’ve never really thought about my fave bird, but maybe seagulls, b/c they have the best life, lol. Cardinals are sentimental too….
I find myself often right behind you in the Blog Train, and its always a treat!
Very Interesting facts about our national bird, thanks for sharing them.
I’ve never really though about my favorite bird, but maybe a parrot beacuse they have such pretty colors and can sometimes talk
Have a Great day!
Thanks for the interesting information. I think the Bald Eagle is a much pretty bird than the turkey so I’m happy with the choice.