With squally winds blowing, dark-gray clouds blocked the sun’s rays all morning on Saturday, June 28, 2008. But gloomy weather did not prevent citizens from the small Illinois town of Jacob from taking “terns” to get a bird’s-eye view of a new neighbor. Employees from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Midwest Region put together an event to introduce the people of Jacob to the endangered least tern.

The project got its start when local terns decided to nest on a gravel road in Jacob in late May. Generally, the terns make their home on open sandbars along the Mississippi River. However, the river’s high-water levels forced them to make Swan Pond Road their temporary home. The road floods at least once every two to three years, leaving behind sand and small gravel. Terns used this gravel to camouflage their two or three buff, lighted-spotted eggs in a shallow scrape in the substrate. To protect the terns, county officials closed the road until the birds completed their nesting cycle.

Service employees from the Middle Mississippi National Wildlife Refuge and Marion Ecological Services provided visitors with spotting scopes and binoculars to view the nesting terns. But participants got a bonus when one adult male decided to put on a show.  As TV news cameras rolled, it flew overhead into the strong winds and called loudly. Hovering over flood-inundated farm fields, it peered downward in search of an appetizer to bring its mate, folded its wings and slammed into the water.

“Holy cow, did you just see that?” said Missy Klein of Jacob. While the audience watched, the tern exploded out of the water and flew off with a small minnow in its beak, bringing it back to the nesting female.

Marion ES treated those attending the program to gift bags full of bird-related stickers, pencils, posters, coloring books, as well as a least-tern beanie baby. Administrative Assistant Shelley Simmonds and Assistant Field Supervisor Joyce Collins from the Marion ES Field Office ordered and filled all gift bags and handed them out to members of the audience. Collins, along with Refuge Manager Robert Cail, answered additional questions after the program ended.

“This is a wonderful opportunity to inform and inspire not only adults but also our youth, who will be the decision-makers in the future.” Cail said.  

The interior least tern is a very small, white tern. It has a black cap, white forehead, pale-gray back and wings, black-tipped yellow bill and shallow wing beat. The Service listed the interior population as endangered in 1985 after populations declined due to habitat loss and degradation and disturbance of nesting sites.