Bald eagles!  Get your patriotic as F bald eagles here!

I’ve lived in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania my entire immortal long-legged life.  Yes, I’m what you would call a yinzer.

yinz·er
ˈyinzər/noun/USinformal
  1. a native or inhabitant of the US city of Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania.
    “I walked over to a table of yinzers and instantly felt at home”
yinzer
Told ya – I’m a yinzer…a damn fine looking yinzer, if I may say so…. about myself.

And for every minute of that vast immortal yinzer life there were no wild bald eagles in Pittsburgh.

Zero.

None.

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There were legitimate reasons as to why bald eagles were too good for us yinzers; the rivers were filthy as a mutha f’er, the air was a ghastly fog of burned up coal, and people were sprinkling egg destabilizing DDT on their salads.  Mmmm, DDT.

ddt-nursery-ad
For decades DDT was used for insect control.  An unfortunate side effect of DDT is that it makes raptor egg shells brittle.  Brittle eggs means embryos in eggs don’t survive.  Another fun side effect of DDT is that it is a carcinogen.  Good thing that the advertisement above has junior all slathered up in that crap.  Ladies do know what is good!  Image via Envisioning the American Dream

Luckily, the yinzer Illuminati (Mr. Rogers, Andrew Carnegie, Andy Warhol, and Myron Cope) got woke AF about the environment and ordered some changes.

They got the air cleaned up, the rivers were worshed (the rivers now teem with fish including the Allegheny white fish), and people switched to non-DDT toppings for their salads including french fries, cheese, and oodles of ranch dressing.  Yup, bunch fatties in this town!

pittsburgh-salad
I’m on a diet.  Gimme a 2,000 calorie salad.  Photo Credit:  Jill Layton

With the city and surrounding environment cleaned up the eagles took notice – there were plenty of massive trees on our mini-mountains for their gigantic nests, there were three rivers filled with fish, and there were no other eagles.  Pittsburgh had become prime eagle turf!

harmar-eagle-nest
This bald eagle nest formally belong to a pair of red tailed hawks.  The eagles kicked the hawks out and then super-sized the nest.  It’s now gigantic!

For the first time in over 200 years the eagles came home to roost in the Burgh.

bald-eagle-flying
Soar, you patriotic bastard, soar!!!!  In this picture is one of the Harmar eagles (the Allegheny river eagles)

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There are now three breeding pairs of bald eagles in the Burgh (one on each of our rivers).  The eagles on the Monongahela (the Hays eagles) and the Allegheny (the Harmar eagles) are local celebrities.  These dudes have their own social media presence in addition to a web cam feed at each nest (www.pixcontroller.com/eagles/).  Yinzers absolutely love the eagles almost as much as they love the Stillers (Steelers for the rest of you).

pair-of-bald-eagles
These are the Harmar eagles enjoying a pre-copulation moment.  Seriously, they went at right after I took this picture.  You can’t get eagle eggs without some eagle loving.  Now you know!

If any of yinz are in the Burgh and looking to see some eagles they can be hard to find (both in terms of where the nests and where to actually look when you are there).  If you want some pointers on how to see these glorious birds then drop me a comment.  I promise that if you see one soaring and screaming ‘Murica you will know that the bird is definitely worth the hype!

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