Just to re-iterate Bill's assessment. Bill Whan <[log in to unmask]> wrote: Asked about this topic, I thumbed through the records available to me. They confirm that Peterjohn (2001) is on the money when he says Forster's terns "have returned by 25-26 March, and frequently appear during the first week of April." So much so, I had not made a point of mentioning two over the Sandusky Bay Bridge on the 1st of April. A quick look back, I see I have a 6 April 2001 record for Huron. That same day Doug & MIcki Dunakin had a bird in Paulding. I likely do not have an earlier record personally. Over the past decade, for example, there are a dozen published records in the Ohio Cardinal on or before 12 April for the state (plus quite a few others in the background, since generally only the first spring record is published). There are two records for 25 March, in Muskingum (1999) and Allen (2002) counties. There are Lake Erie records before 10 April from Erie, Cuyahoga, Lorain, Lake, and Lucas counties. Greg Links reported one in Lucas County on 7 April 2001; on that same day, Forster's were also seen in Lake (J. Pogacnik), Wayne (S. Snyder), and Paulding (M&D Dunakin) counties. As mentioned above, I have the Paulding bird as recorded the 6th. published here http://aves.net/birdnews/pastspring01.htm at the time of observation. The year before, Jay Lehman and Hank Armstrong had 2 at Huron 26 March, while 2 birds were on a borrow pit in Hocking County two days earlier as seen by Bill Perrine, former ornithology instructor at Hocking College. cheers Vic Fazio Shaker Heights, OH ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]