RACHEL CARSON'S DIRTY SECRET:

They live in monogamous pairs for life, a span that runs for 20 or 30 years in the wild. If a bird loses a mate, come breeding season he or she will seek a new partner. They court by performing aerial dives and displays designed, it seems, to make human air-show pilots feel inadequate. They construct the mother of all bird nests at the tops of massive trees, mostly with sticks. They remodel and add on each year, and a nest can reach nine feet across and weigh half a ton. They lay one to three eggs a year, incubating them for a bit over a month. Eagle chicks are all brown. The parents feed them (fish is the preferred food) and guard them. They fly at about the age of 12 weeks but don't fly away. They stick around with their parents.

We almost lost the bald eagle, and the fact that the species has come back and is now thriving is one of our great environmental achievements. In the mid 20th century the birds got a bad rap and were alleged to eat toddlers (false) and baby lambs (mostly false--they do eat mice and small mammals). People detested them and would shoot them for the hell of it.

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