Benjamin Franklin famously wanted to make the turkey the national bird, which is always a source of amusement—and a bit of discomfort—when Thanksgiving rolls around. We can’t quite put our finger on it, but it makes us feel like Hannibal Lecter or something. It seems as if we’re violating the dietary prohibitions set forth in Deuteronomy, you know: “Of all clean birds ye shall eat. But these are they of which ye shall not eat: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray.” It’s not much of a stretch to substitute “turkey” for “ospray,” which is the way King James liked to spell it.

But we often think too much.

The wild turkey is a magnificent bird—not to mention a magnificent bourbon—and would have made a proud symbol on our currency. (Even though, to put it bluntly, it has a face only a mother could love. Really, we’re not trying to be cruel but it sorta resembles an “ossifrage,” which the dictionary defines as a “lammergeir” and which is a polite way to say “vulture.”)

But life has a way of naturally balancing itself. The eagle, equally or surpassingly magnificent, would, frankly, look pretty paltry on a platter. Not much room for stuffing, either, and Thanksgiving is no time for Stove Top stuffing, though that never bothers our bachelor cook, Terry Miller, who always brings Stove Top and his green beans-mushroom soup-fried onion rings casserole to the Mountain Home Thanksgiving office party. We love him nonetheless. Besides, he’s busy chasing birds this often-lonely time of year.

All of this is a roundabout way, which is our wont as deadline looms like an ossifrage and there is much space to fill, to talk about the eagle’s resurgence in these parts. In this issue, Holly Howell, our resident sommelier and wine columnist, wrote about Rochester-area Eagle Crest Vineyards, which is home to two pairs of nesting bald eagles. We’ve been to Rochester and, if eagles can snuggle up to Rochester, they can live just about anywhere.

(Just kidding. We’re from Niagara Falls and the first time we visited, we thought Rochester was Paris on the Irondequoit. Or perhaps Oslo on the Ontario.)
 But the eagle is returning in numbers. We are close to the Delaware Water Gap, which is perhaps the eagle’s largest and most important winter habitat in the eastern United States as specified by the Northern States Bald Eagle Recovery Plan.

According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the Delaware has been nominated as one of the ten “core” bald eagle wintering areas within the twenty-four-state Northern States region, “sites where protection must be assured, in perpetuity, as one of the recovery objectives.”

We could go into numbers but let’s not. We remember seeing our first bald eagle while fishing on Deer Creek, which is in Maryland close to the Chesapeake Bay, another one of the bird’s important recovery habitats. The experience was akin to losing one’s virginity or First Communion, and though we like to kid around, we kid you not. We would not kid anyone about such an experience. It filled the heart, and like many such experiences, it is impossible to explain why it did. Words fail.

This month, we wrote in length about the cougar’s possible return to the Twin Tiers. We are realists and understand that the eagle, a scavenger, is not universally beloved. Ben Franklin considered them lazy birds. But God, in His wisdom, made the cougar and the vulture, eagle, osprey, and the turkey. He had a plan and it’s said He gave us dominion over all the beasts on the face of the Earth. But dominion doesn’t mean eradication. We think there’s enough room for everyone and everything.

So when you sit down for your Thanksgiving feast this month, give thanks to our national bird. The one that is and the one that might have been.

- John Fulmer