The bald eagle's day is coming - and it's Monday

There's a stuffed bald eagle giving a wild turkey a little side eye at a museum on Independence Mall, a stern look of "Don't make me fly up there."

In the United States of America, the bald eagle is most definitely the boss, the symbol of our nation, even though Benjamin Franklin preferred the gobbler over that snowy-headed raptor.

On June 20, 1782, the Second Continental Congress voted to make the bald eagle a national symbol, and 200 years later, President Ronald Reagan deemed June 20 "National Bald Eagle Day."

"Whether silhouetted against the sky on a rocky pinnacle in Alaska or soaring majestically overhead in Florida, the bald eagle is admired as one of nature's most spectacular creatures," Reagan said in a proclamation at the time.

One doesn't need to go to Alaska or Florida to see a bald eagle in the wild, though. Numbers have been rebounding nationwide for decades, and there are plenty of bald eagles in Pennsylvania and New Jersey these days. Historians in Philadelphia say the stuffed eagle sitting in a glass case at the Second Bank of the United States on Chestnut Street may have been the inspiration for the Founding Fathers.

"I just don't think the turkey was exciting enough," said Karie Diethorn, the museum's curator.

The unnamed eagle, Diethorn said, was the personal family pet of Philadelphia artist, naturalist, and budding taxidermist Charles Willson Peale. The bird, according to PhillyHistory.org, lived in captivity from 1795 to 1805.

"We have no idea where he came from," Diethorn said.

When it died, Peale preserved the bird, a process that included a heavy dosing of arsenic to keep bugs from devouring it, and it has been displayed at both Philosophical Hall and Independence Hall.

"George Washington saw it. It's been seen by the first president of the United States," said John B. Kelly, inventory management specialist at Independence National Historical Park.

Peale's eagle was not damaged when soot entered the heating and air ducts after an air handler caught fire in the museum's basement in January 2015. The museum was closed for 16 months.

If you'd prefer to see the real thing, you can head to the Philadelphia Zoo or take a short road trip. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the bald eagle was once in danger of extinction in the lower 48 states, with fewer than 500 nesting pairs remaining, but recovery efforts allowed for it to be removed from the endangered species list in 2007.

Patti Barber, an endangered bird biologist with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, said the state's bald eagle population is doing "fantastic."

Bald eagles have been spotted at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum, and are regulars on the upper portions of the Delaware River and tidal areas of South Jersey.

Barber said bald eagles are difficult to count because populations vary by season and the birds wander to New Jersey and New York to build new nests.

Sometimes they come back. Sometimes they don't.

"They don't have Pennsylvania IDs," Barber said. "They have no respect for political boundaries."

narkj@phillynews.com

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