Images of this iconic eagle can be found almost everywhere. The bald eagle has appeared on all official emblems of the United States. But if it were the turkey instead?

When one thinks of the Fourth of July, almost immediately fireworks and then the Spirit of '76 come to mind. Then maybe an image of an American flag with a bald eagle adorning the top of the staff.

Images of this iconic eagle can be found almost everywhere. The bald eagle has appeared on all official emblems of the United States, as well as on most coins, paper money, passports and on many U.S. stamps and the president's official seal.

But why this bird?

Almost immediately after the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress gave Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams (father of John Quincy Adams) the job of creating an official seal for the new nation. However, the three founding fathers failed to come up with a design that won Congress’ approval, as did two later committees that were given the assignment.

Five years later, the work of all three committees was handed over to Charles Thomson, the secretary of Congress. Thomson chose what he thought were the best segments of the various designs and made the bald eagle — which had been introduced by the artistically endowed Pennsylvania lawyer William Barton of the third committee — as the centerpiece. (Since ancient Roman legion times, the eagle has been considered a symbol of strength.)

Thomson put together the final design for the official seal, an "American Eagle on the wing and rising." In the eagle's right talon, Thomson placed the olive branch (peace) suggested by the second committee. The eagle faces toward this ancient symbol “the power of peace.” In its left talon, the eagle holds the power of war symbolized by the bundle of 13 arrows (the 13 colonies). On a scroll in the eagle's beak, Thomson put the motto e pluribus unum (from many, one), suggested by the first committee.

Congress approved Thomson's eagle design the same day he submitted it — June 20, 1782.

It would have been the turkey if Franklin got his way.

Franklin’s complaint was that the drawing of the bald eagle used in the great seal actually looked more like a wild turkey. This made Franklin compare the two birds, and he decided the wild turkey would have been a better symbol for our country.

More than a year after the Great Seal, as it was now known, was adopted, it was mentioned by Franklin as he revealed privately in a letter to his daughter about the wild turkey as a good symbol for "the temper and conduct of America.”

"For my part," Franklin wrote, "I wish the eagle had not been chosen as the representative of this country. He is a bird of bad moral character; he does not get his living honestly. You may have seen him perched in some dead tree where, too, lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the osprey and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish and is bearing it to his nest for his young ones, the bald eagle pursues him and takes the fish away. With all this injustice, he is never in good case.

"I am on this account not displeased that the figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a turkey. For the truth the turkey is in comparison is a much more respectable bird, and with a true original native of America the turkey is besides, though a little vain and silly, a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on."

Franklin was wrong about the bald eagle: It is native to North America. Americans can't really lay exclusive claim to either species, since both range from Canada to Mexico.

So, all natural history aside, I think that the connotation “he was acting like a turkey, silly and simple-minded” would eliminate it from being considered as our national bird today. Our actual totem, the majestic eagle, imagined flying free above its lofty mountaintop home as our national symbol probably belies the good intentions of Franklin.

— Phil Kyle writes about birding every week for the Cape Cod Times. He is a past president of The Cape Cod Bird Club, and in his semiretirement, works summers as head naturalist for Barnstable Harbor Ecotours.