Many dream of waking up on Christmas to a mound of presents stacked around a tree. Others simply wish to glimpse a few snowflakes when looking out the window. And then there’s Alexandra Greenberg, who walked onto her back balcony on the holiday and saw two adult bald eagles. “They were fishing,” said Greenberg, 34, who lives with her husband along the North Branch of the Chicago River in the Lathrop Homes area. “We saw one first and then we saw the second. It was just magnificent.” The bald eagle, a symbol of the power and the strength of the United States for more than 240 years officially became the country’s national bird on Christmas Eve. It once avoided Chicago like the plague. But a nest high in a tree beside the Little Calumet River in Chicago in 2004 was the first bald eagle nest spotted in the Chicago area for more than a century, according to the U.S. Forest Service. And by the end of 2021, 35 bald eagle nests had been spotted in the Chicago area, according to the Forest Service. On Tuesday morning on eBird — Cornell University’s popular bird-watching smartphone app — almost 60 bald eagle sightings in the past week had been reported within a circle centered at the Willis Tower with a 30-mile radius. “I wouldn’t say it’s a common bird, but it’s definitely not uncommon,” said Matt Igleski, executive director of the Chicago Bird Alliance. “If you’re in the right habitat in the city, you can basically expect to see them or possibly run into them at any time.” In the 1780s, when the bald eagle became a symbol of the United States, “anecdotal accounts” stated the country might have had 100,000 nesting eagles, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The species’ population declined in the middle of the 19th century due to a loss of nesting habitat and they were often shot, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. Even though the large raptors mostly eat fish and carrion, they were killed because they were considered “marauders” that preyed on lambs, chickens and domestic livestock. Use of the pesticide DDT after World War II further curtailed the population of the bird, which is indigenous to North America, from Canada and Alaska to northern Mexico. By 1963, about 400 nesting pairs of bald eagles were known to exist, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. A bald eagle soars above the Micro Center store at the Diversey Parkway turning basin on the North Branch of the Chicago River on Dec. 30, 2024. (Tess Crowley/Chicago Tribune) But a light at the end of the tunnel appeared in the 1970s. DDT was banned. After the Endangered Species Act of 1973, the eagles were listed as endangered or threatened throughout the lower 48 states. The eagles were bred in captivity and reintroduced to the wild. Nesting sites were protected. By 2007, there were nearly 10,000 nesting pairs of bald eagles in the contiguous U.S., and they were removed from the list of threatened and endangered species. “I think now that people are seeing them so often is just showing that legislation and things like that do work,” Igleski said. “We can bring these species back if we identify those issues and mitigate them early on.” Bald eagles seek out larger rivers and lakes because they eat primarily fish, so there’s much for the birds to love about Chicago: the Chicago River, Calumet River, Lake Calumet and maybe even the lakefront. In the winter, there tends to be an uptick in bald eagle sightings when smaller bodies of water freeze over and the birds congregate around larger ones that stay unfrozen, Igleski said. The birds are also nicer to each other in the winter. Once, Igleski saw 17 bald eagles perched together around Lake Calumet. “You’ll see sometimes a dozen or so all together flying around or perched in trees fairly close to each other,” he said. “If it was the nesting season, they probably wouldn’t be that tolerant. They’d probably be chasing each other away.” The clamor of the nation’s third largest city doesn’t seem to bother the eagles all that much, Igleski said. It’s possible that birds who come to the area from the north have to adjust to the noise, he said. Just across the state line, there’s an eagle nest Igleski often sees right next to the Indiana Toll Road. And actually, there’s a major upside to a habitat abundant with cars: roadkill. “We think of them as these majestic predators and everything, but eagles tend to be fairly scavenger-focused when they’re hunting,” Igleski said. “I will see them on a roadkill deer or whatever they can find. They’re not always that picky.” The eagle — familiar to many because of its white head, yellow beak and brown body — has appeared on the Great Seal of the United States, which is used in official documents, since 1782. The seal is made up of the eagle, an olive branch, arrows, a flag-like shield, the motto “E Pluribus Unum” and a constellation of stars. Also in 1782, Congress designated the bald eagle as the national emblem. Its image appears in a host of places, ranging from documents and the presidential flag to military insignia and U.S. currency, according to USA.gov. On Dec. 24, President Joe Biden signed into law legislation sent to him by Congress that amends the United States Code to correct what had long gone unnoticed and designate the bald eagle as the national bird. Igleski said he was among the many who assumed the bald eagle — whose scientific name is Haliaeetus leucocephalus — was already the national bird. “I was pretty confused because the fun fact I always hear people cite is that so-and-so wanted it to be the turkey, and then it became the bald eagle,” Igleski said, referring to Benjamin Franklin. In a 1784 letter to his daughter about a medal issued by an association of Continental Army veterans, Franklin wrote he wished the bald eagle “had not been chosen as the representative of our country,” according to the History Channel. An immature bald eagle perches on a tree in Big Marsh Park in the South Deering neighborhood of Chicago on Dec. 28, 2024. (Tess Crowley/Chicago Tribune) Franklin wrote the eagle was “a bird of bad moral character” because it steals food from other bird species and deemed the turkey “a much more respectable bird.” After seeing the bald eagles, Greenberg began to cook and listen to the news from Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa, which spouted out something about the bald eagle becoming the national bird. “It was the strangest thing,” she said. Bird photographer Alex Muench spent the morning of Dec. 19 following a bald eagle around Humboldt Park. Muench said sightings of the eagle in the park were reported between Dec. 13 and Dec. 22, and it’s large and pretty hard to miss. “Our condo faces the park so we’ve seen it flying in the tree line from our patio a few times,” said Muench, 33. “And my wife and I have seen it flying around while we’ve been driving doing errands in the neighborhood.” Muench said he was genuinely surprised the bald eagle wasn’t already codified as the national bird. The Associated Press contributed.