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• Open sesame on the sloughs
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• All eyes on Wabasha
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• Counting birds
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Where eagles land

Winter is anything but slow at the big birds' favorite gathering spots.

Benjamin Franklin was a wise man, but he was way off base when he proposed the turkey as a national symbol instead of the eagle.

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.

As their numbers grew, the eagles became a tourist attraction. People came from all over to watch them in action, soaring and diving, snatching fish spotted from a mile away, either in the river or in the talons of another bird.

Eagles don't really have lovable personalities. They gather not because they're social but because they're habitual thieves and think they might find something to steal, a behavior biologists call kleptoparasitism.

Eagles hate to share space, often chasing other eagles from their perches. And they love to eat dead things along roads, which often causes them to swoop in front of cars and suffer an early demise.

But, man, are bald eagles fun to watch.

Those haughty pale eyes, that 6-foot wing span, those wicked talons and the flesh-shredding beak — eagles are just plain cool. Everything about them is larger than life, right down to their nests, which are so big and sturdy bears sometimes climb into them to hibernate.

To watch an eagle wheeling and dipping through the air is treat enough. But the chance to see an airborne food fight or the tandem plummet of mating eagles brings tourists back again and again.

In the 1980s, some of the riverside towns where eagles gathered began to promote them, putting spotting scopes on observation decks and holding eagle-watching weekends.

It turned out to be a huge economic boon for such places as Prairie du Sac and Sauk City, adjoining towns on the Wisconsin River near Baraboo. Hundreds of eagles spend the winter there, roosting in deep valleys nearby and fishing below a hydroelectric plant, whose turbines stun fish and make them easy pickings.

In 2005, a study showed that during the six weeks of peak eagle season, 50,000 tourists bring $1.2 million into the towns, known collectively as Sauk Prairie.

"For a community of 5,000, that's a lot of money," says Rich Van, a longtime member of the area's Ferry Bluff Eagle Council. "It used to be Sauk Prairie in the winter was just dead; they'd roll up the sidewalks. Now, it's a bustling place year-round. It's really changed the dynamic of the community."

In Minnesota, Wabasha was first to capitalize on the eagles, which congregate at the ice-free spot where the Chippewa River surges into the Mississippi. First, it built an observation deck downtown and staffed it with volunteers on winter weekends. Festivals were started. An eagle center set up shop in the visitors center, then acquired a storefront of its own.

Now, the National Eagle Center has its own brand-new building downtown, featuring a golden eagle and three bald eagles that were injured and are unable to survive in the wild.

"People have always known Wabasha is a good place to see eagles," says MaryBeth Garrigan, the center's programming director. "Families, especially those with kids, love to come here. We call it a beak experience — you're within 5 feet, so you can't miss it."

Towns all along the Mississippi — Red Wing, Minn.; Prairie du Chien and Cassville, Wis.; Guttenberg and Dubuque, Iowa — also have signed onto the eagle express, sponsoring annual eagle-watching weekends. As bird populations have increased, it's no longer uncommon to spot an eagle, but that has only increased the number of tourists who want to do so.

"There are still a lot of people who have never seen an eagle, and they're just thrilled to see them," says Pat Manthey, avian ecologist for Wisconsin's DNR in La Crosse.

Manthey, who says she expects the annual eagle survey to find about 1,000 nesting pairs in Wisconsin, gives presentations at many eagle festivals. "We're still getting huge crowds of people, and it's growing," she says.

In Sauk Prairie, says Rich Van, surveys at eagle overlooks show 80 percent of the visitors are repeat visitors.

"What really happens is that only about 10 percent of people come for the Eagle Days," he says. "After that, they come explicitly not on the eagle weekend, so they don't have the crowds and they can watch the birds in a quieter environment."

In Sauk Prairie, the eagles are so close the town has to post signs asking visitors to watch from their cars and not slam doors; the eagles are easily frightened and may return to their evening roosts with empty stomachs, wasting the energy they need to survive severe cold.

Of course, people still do slam doors and get out of cars, emboldened by the eagles' proximity.

"People are standing there, and an eagle flies into the tree right overhead," Van says. "It's the bird's choice, and if you approach the tree, the eagle will fly at 100 feet. But people get the false idea they're not wary."

Eagles may tolerate people in winter because they need to eat, Manthey says, not because they like them. But that doesn't stop tourists from following them wherever they go.

"For some people, it's a mecca, an annual mecca to see the eagles," Garrigan says. "It's a phenomenon." 

Below are eagle-watching events along the Upper Mississippi in 2010.

For tips on finding the birds yourself, see Looking for bald eagles. For more about winter eagle-watching excursions, see Open sesame on the sloughs.

Trip Tips: Eagle-watching festivals

November-March: Outside the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minn., volunteers staff the EagleWatch observation deck 1-3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. For more, see All eyes on Wabasha.

Jan. 8-10: Bald Eagle Days in Rock Island, Ill. At the Quad Cities Conservation Alliance Expo Center, there's an environmental fair, with flying demonstrations by eagles, hawks and owls from the World Bird Sanctuary in St. Louis and many other events. Admission. 309-788-5912.

Jan. 9: Bald Eagle Watch in Clinton, Iowa. It features live-eagle presentations, programs for kids and music at Clinton Community College and eagle-watching at Lock and Dam 13 on the Mississippi River.

Jan. 15-16: Bald Eagle Watching Days in Prairie du Sac, Wis. It features guided bus tours, Eagles in Wisconsin and Birds of Prey programs and a radio-tracking demonstration.  At 10 a.m. Saturdays in January and February, the Ferry Bluff Eagle Council hosts eagle-watching bus tours, $5. To reserve, call 800-683-2453.

Jan. 23: Bald Eagle Day in Dubuque, Iowa.  Live-eagle programs and free trolley rides from the Grand River Center downtown to the National Mississippi River Museum and Lock & Dam 11. 800-798-8844.

Jan. 16 and Feb. 13 and 27: Bald Eagle Bus Tours in Galena, Ill. The four-hour tours are hosted by the Eagle Nature Foundation, $75, $50 for children under 17. Reserve at 815-594-2306.

Jan. 23-24, Bald Eagle Watch Weekend around Ottawa, Ill. This town in northern Illinois will feature activities at the Starved Rock Lodge near Utica and the Illinois Waterway Visitor Center in Ottawa.  815-667-4054.

Jan. 30-31, Bald Eagle Days in Cassville, Wis. This town is just downriver from Guttenberg.  There are raptor programs throughout the day. In the morning, volunteers man spotting scopes in Riverside Park.

Feb. 20-March 21:  Eagle Spot Weekends in Red Wing, Minn. From 1 to 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, volunteers  answer questions and lend spotting scopes and binoculars in Colvill Park, just south of Red Wing off U.S. 61. 800-498-3444.

Feb. 27: Bald Eagle Appreciation Day in Prairie du Chien, Wis., and Effigy Mounds National Monument near Marquette, Iowa. Birding experts give programs and lead mini field trips, depending on weather. At the Wisconsin Travel Information Center, just off the bridge into town, volunteers man spotting scopes. 800-732-1673, 563-873-3491.

March 6: Bald Eagle Day at Lake Red Rock near Pella, Iowa. There will be live-eagle programs, an environmental fair and spotting scopes for viewing eagles at the dam on Lake Red Rock, Iowa's largest.

March: Soar With the Eagles festival in Wabasha, Minn. Special events will be held at the National Eagle Center on weekends all month.

The center, which has four resident eagles, is open daily year-round, with special programs at 11 a.m. and 1 and 3 p.m. Admission is $6, $4 for children 4-17. 651-565-4989 or 877-332-4537.

Other eagle-watching events will be held Jan. 9 in Muscatine, Iowa; Jan. 16-17 in Keokuk, Iowa,  Jan. 23 in Quincy, Ill.; Jan. 30-31 in LeClaire, Iowa; and Feb. 6 in Hampton, Ill. 

For more information, call the Mississippi River Visitors Center on Lock and Dam 15 in Rock Island, Ill. The center also offers eagle watches combined with tours of its historic clock tower, Jan. 2-3 and weekends from Jan. 16 to Feb. 14. To reserve, call 309-794-5338.

Last updated on February 13, 2010