The Bald Eagle

The bald eagle was the national emblem for 242 years before it was formally the national bird.

Congress adopted the Great Seal on June 20, 1782, with a bald eagle holding an olive branch in one talon and thirteen arrows in the other. The official title waited until December 24, 2024, when a bill naming the bald eagle the national bird was signed into law.

In between, the real bird nearly disappeared from the lower 48. The pesticide DDT thinned eggshells until nests failed, and by 1963 only 417 breeding pairs were left. The EPA banned general use of DDT in 1972. The eagle came back so well that it was removed from the federal list of threatened and endangered species in 2007, and a 2020 federal estimate counted about 316,700 bald eagles in the lower 48, with 71,467 occupied nests.

The poster keeps a formal, field-guide layout: the name in serif capitals, "National Bird of the United States" beneath it, and an italic line at the foot. The eagle is perched in profile on a heavy branch, white head turned right, hooked beak, talons locked around the bark. Each dark body feather is drawn as its own scalloped edge against a blurred forest, and the white tail shows beneath the folded wings.