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The bald eagle is now officially the national bird of the US, after President Joe Biden signed a law on Christmas Eve bestowing the honour upon the white-headed and yellow-beaked bird of prey.

The name colcannon comes from the Irish cálceannann, meaning “white-headed cabbage. ”

Other birds that flock to burned forests include white-headed woodpeckers, Lewis's woodpeckers, three-toed woodpeckers, olivesided flycatchers, Clark's nutcrackers and mountain bluebirds.

“Baldy” signifies the bare expanses of rock on the face of the summit, but I also like to think of it in the subtler zoological sense of “bald,” meaning having white markings or coloring, like the white-headed bald eagle, our national bird — and also as in white, like the snow that lingers so long at 10,000 feet.

The U.S. bald eagle population has quadrupled since 2009, and these large, white-headed raptors are now a regular sight even in New York City; bald eagles breed on Staten Island, for example.