Brown Pelicans nesting near the mouth of the Mississippi River

see related news release at:  http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/pao/releases/pelicans3.htm

 LAND MADE FOR PELICANS
Photo by Doug Spinks, USACE New Orleans

Brown pelicans fly over Plover Island, at the edge of the Gulf of Mexico near the Mississippi River’s mouth, joined by laughing gulls.  In foreground, the shoreline makes evident the land created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ beneficial use of dredged material.  The 24-acre island, teeming with the endangered brown pelicans, is one of six built with material dredged from a nearby navigation channel, Baptiste Collette Bayou.

BIRDS IN THE BUSH
Photo by Doug Spinks, USACE New Orleans

Thick shrubbery on Plover Island entices endangered brown pelicans to nest in its midst.  Several brown pelican chicks are still clothed in baby white.   Plover is one of the six Bird Islands built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with dredged material from a nearby navigation channel  near the mouth of the Mississippi River.  Laughing gulls are in foreground.

 PELICAN BEACH
Photo by Doug Spinks, USACE New Orleans

Brown pelicans catch a few rays loafing on the beach at Plover Island, built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ beneficial use of dredged material.  The the 24-acre Plover is one of six Bird Islands, a chain more than 2.5 miles long built from the maintenance dredging of a nearby navigation channel, Baptiste Collette Bayou.

NAVIGATION’S GIFT TO NATURE
MVN, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

A commercial vessel (top) enters the Gulf of Mexico via Baptiste Collette Bayou.  From material dredged to maintain the navigation channel, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers created more than 90 percent of the 325 acres in the photograph. Only perhaps 30 acres of natural land remained when the Corps began. At right (top) are the six Bird Islands. On the 24-acre Plover Island (third from top) an estimated 11,000 pairs of endangered brown pelicans are nesting. The other land is wetlands.

        
               New Orleans District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers