"That large flat bowl in the middle of the state happens to be fabulous habitat for prairie chickens,'' says naturalist Amy Thorstenson of Golden Sands conservation council in Stevens Point. "It's the last stronghold on the east side of the Mississippi.''

They're impressive when spotted overhead. But up close, it's easier to get to know a bird — say, the northern goshawk, a fierce predator whose image once adorned the helmet of Attila the Hun.

As she held a young goshawk by the legs, naturalist Willow Maser struggled to make herself heard above its high-pitched screeches.

It's easy to see the ephemerals — false rue anemone, hepatica and trout lilies, swelling into a carpet of white — and the watercress that swirls in cold brooks. Tiny chartreuse leaves unfold from the tips of tree branches, and tightly furled fiddlehead ferns push up from the old brown fronds.

When it's cold enough, you can walk onto the Mississippi River. You can see bald eagles up close. You can explore sloughs and backwaters without being eaten alive by insects.

"Most of these places, you'd almost die in a few minutes in summer," says Scott Mehus, education specialist at the National Eagle Center in Wabasha. "So now is a good time to get out there and see things."

Before Alice, Kinstler and her husband, Ken, could sleep late, go out on dates and travel whenever they felt like it.

But then little Alice came along. Alice wakes them up at the crack of dawn, sulks if they leave her and leaves messes all over the house. Alice is a spoiled brat, Karla Kinstler admits.

Why? Because bald eagles are the perfect Americans. They're large, brash, opportunistic and easy to identify. And wherever they go, money follows.

Not long after the pesticide DDT was banned in 1972, bald eagle populations began to bounce back in the lower 48 states. Eagles were hard to spot in the summer, when they spread out over the north woods of Minnesota and Wisconsin, but in the winter, they'd gather to fish in the open water beneath dams or at the mouths of large rivers.

For trumpeter swans, the largest water bird in North America, the Mississippi River town is a virtual Club Med, thanks to balmy waters from the nuclear power-generating plant upstream and a daily all-you-can-eat spread of dried corn.

The first swans showed up in the winter of 1986, as Sheila Lawrence was feeding the ducks and geese in the yard of her riverside home. They appreciated her hospitality, and every year more came, first by the dozens, then by the hundreds.