Points-of-view of Piping Plover and Least Tern of Missouri River

Adult Piping Plover on the Missouri National Recreation River, early in the 1983 breeding season, from a Nebraska perspective of weekly riverine surveys on the hefty sandbars. It was an agency boat and motor.

Defensive adult Piping Plover on sandbar of the Missouri, denoted by survey out from Newcastle, on the Nebraska side.

A fine scene of nestlings of the Piping Plover, summer of 1983.

Least terns eggs in the nest of a Piping Plover. June 16, 1983 on the Missouri National Recreation River. This picture was published in a seasonal report for American Birds. Notice all the tracks on the right side of this nest, which based on this image was well-cared-for, as the eggs are all carefully arranged and their is nothing haphazard to convey that this was nothing other than a typical nest, shown further because of its distinct character.

Least Tern fledgling finding shelter from the hot suns on dry habitat sandbar of the Missouri National Recreation River.

Least Tern Fledgling; note the moistness of the sandbar, created by rising waters in the river with an increase in the release rate at Gavins Point Dam, just up by Yankton. This tern could not yet fly above the waters. It's life was threatened.

Just-fledged Piping Plovers gathered from a sandbar being inundated on the Missouri River, below Gavins Point Dam. July, 1983. These and other plovers, as well as little Least Tern were washed from sandbars by flows from an increase in the release rate at Gavins Point Dam, as operated by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Decoys placed at Desoto NWR, as pictured in August, 1984. The terns were meant to attract wild birds to utilize some sandy habitat on the refuge.