Alaska Cruise - Ketchikan, Bald Eagle Closeups

At the very end of our rain forest excursion was an enclosure with a captive bald eagle that had been injured (seen on his right wing in the image above), thus could not survive in the wild.  Such a majestic bird, and so close up!  The Bigger Cahoona was clicking away, as were several other cameras from our group.

Interestingly, we learned that Benjamin Franklin did not want this bird to be emblematic of the United States, saying in a letter written from Paris to his daughter in 1784: "For my own part, I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen the representative of our country.  He is a bird of bad moral character.  He does not get his living honestly..."  This stems no doubt from the fact that they are opportunistic scavengers, but they in fact do also hunt live fish and sometimes other birds, even killing them in mid air (per Wikipedia).

I for one don't see how any other bird could have been a better representative, given its strength and regal appearance...