The Bald Eagle serves as the symbol of the United States of America. This is a fishing bird still recovering from a merciless hunt. Because it is a fishing bird which prefers salmon, bounties were paid for decades for it being killed. In Alaska alone over 100,000 animals were shot.
Pesticides are now thought to be a major cause in decline of the Bald Eagle. As a fishing bird on the end of the food-chain, it is particularly susceptible to the accumulation off pesticides such as DDT. These chemical poisons, in eagle's prey and eventually its own body, cause them to produce extremely thin eggshells that collapse under the weight of the parents. DDT is now banned from the USA and serious efforts are being undertaken to protect its habitat and to prevent it from falling victim to thoughtless hunters.
Does this remind you of a very different animal who lays thin-eggshell eggs? It is one we don't like very much.
That is right it is a snake! When I first read this the first thing I thought of was how a snake laid eggs. Snakes don't incubate their children. They lay them and then leave. So in this sense, climbing a tree that holds a Bald Eagle laying eggs that were poisoned by pesticides because of the parent having eaten bad prey that was also poison would look like a snake's eggs.