It seems the royal tern at Hoover was not found yesterday, but it may not be gone. The brief history of this species in Ohio involves a bird found by Tom LePage at Lorain on 7/8/1995, and refound there by others 7/20-21 then again on 7/26. At Conneaut on 8/17/1995, 22 days later, a royal tern was seen; a common-sense decision deemed this the same individual, which was presumably roaming the Lakefront. Maybe looking for a way out. When first found, the bird was associating with Caspian terns in the harbor. Caspians are not known to breed in Ohio, but they do so not far away, and the smaller number of them around in early July grew till as many as 47 were seen there on 8/9/95. I don't know the circumstances at Conneaut, but likely some Caspians were around. It seems reasonable that the presence of another large tern species (with whom it shares the winter beaches of the Gulf) may have kept this one around for a while. Imagine yourself in one of those Star Wars bar scenes, where you might naturally gravitate to two-legged beings with hair on their heads even if they have three eyes. Which may be why the tern, faute de mieux, hangs out with ring-billed gulls. Anyway, this is now no longer a singular event. I don't know what might have brought the first one here; it could have been violent weather, such as one might conclude brought the 2011 bird. The first bird did not have a full black cap, but adult royals sport this only for a relatively short period early in the breeding season. Our bird seems to be molting into that plumage, so may be looking for a mate and not finding one. This is a marine species that would also be less than happy in a narrow sweet-water reservoir. It has been observed eating gizzard shad, though, so one hopes nutrition is not a problem in the short term. I don't recall seeing many, if any, reports of this bird much north of Walnut St., hence only in the lower mile of the reservoir; there are 5 or so miles north of that, and many stretches are hard to scan because of private property restrictions. Only in a boat could one do a thorough search. One does hope this bird would have the sense to head south, however. This is fresh water with no tides or wide horizons, the food is odd, the weather sucks, and there are no other terns around, even Caspians (there will be in the next 2-3 weeks; though they are only uncommon here, they are usually the first terns to arrive here). We all would like to see this bird survive to propagate its own kind in its native habitat. We have no idea what happened to the 1995 bird, except at some point reports stopped without it having been seen away from Lake Erie. Unless our bird dies, if Hoover has not been a good place even to visit, it will not linger. The chances of someone finding it on its way to warmer climes are slim, but real. Observers south of us should be alert for ANY tern. And a thorough Hoover search conducted by people who know the water would take only a few hours; this task is a lot easier than scanning the entire Erie lakefront, after all. Best of luck to all seekers in this wretched weather, Bill Whan Columbus ______________________________________________________________________ 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]