American Monsters: The History of America’s Most Persistent Urban Tales about Strange Birds, Serpents and Wolfmen

by Charles River Editors

There is, however, a problem with this book - it includes paintings of birds that aren’t recognized as real by current ornithology. Most of them are fairly small birds, but one is very large indeed: a bird Audubon called Washington’s Eagle. There are only two species of eagle currently accepted as living in the United States, the bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) and the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos). Nonetheless, in the early 19th century, Audubon and others became convinced there was a third and much larger species of eagle in America. Audubon first claimed to have seen one of these giant birds in 1814 while on a ship sailing on the Upper Mississippi. Over the next few years, Audubon had several more sightings of the giant bird, and then, around 1825, he shot and killed one in Kentucky and used it to produce a color painting used in his book. He named it Washington’s Eagle and as with all the specimens he collected, made meticulous notes on the bird. These included the fact that it was three feet and seven inches tall and had a wingspan of over ten feet, making it far larger than any other eagle in America.