Larry Gara and I were at Caesar Creek beach this morning. Although the willets reported yesterday by Rick Asamoto were gone, we were able to find an American Avocet, which we watched and photographed for about 45 minutes. As we were about to leave, I spotted a couple of Caspian Terns flying out over the lake. They circled around for a while and finally came in for a landing on the beach near the usual 200 Ring-billed Gulls. I hurriedly reassembled my camera rig and took some pictures. We noticed that one of the terns had a yellow-orange bill while the other had the more characteristic blood red bill. Larry, whose ears are much better than mine, could distinguish two types of calls. One was the raucous call of the adult Caspian, but the other was higher and less pungent. We left the beach and pushed off for Mound Road. The two immature Little Blue Herons were still there, along with the usual assortment of shorebirds. We left there after about half an hour and headed home. I was anxious to see the pictures of the avocet. The big surprise, though, was the pictures of the terns. One of the terns was clearly an adult Caspian. The other was more of a puzzle. It is obviously a juvenile bird because the dorsal and scapular feathers have brown centers. However, even taking into account the poor quality of the pictures, the second bird shows several aspects altogether at odds with Caspian Tern. Here are the points at issue: 1. The bill is the yellow-orange instead of red 2. The second bird is distinctly smaller than the Caspian 3. According to several references, Caspian Tern never shows so much white on the forehead in any plumage 4. There is a discernible carpal bar All of these points are consistent with juvenile Royal Tern. However, we all know that Royal Tern is very rare in Ohio. eBird contains essentially four records. Vic Fazio has entered three sightings from July 1995 from Lorraine Harbor, there is the March 2011 bird seen by many at Hoover Reservoir, and a bird at the St Mary's fish hatchery seen in late April-early May of this year by four reputable observers. Larry and I have not completed our analysis of the pictures, but we think it best to get the word out in case anyone else wants to take a crack at it. We plan to be out at the beach tomorrow morning to try to relocate the bird and would be glad of company. In the meantime, here is a link to the best of my pictures for the perusal of our elders and betters. Click for photos here: *http://tinyurl.com/ck7l42f* Cheers, Bob -- Robert D Powell Congress Farm Research Institute Wilmington, OH, USA [log in to unmask] http://rdp1710.wordpress.com Nulla dies sine aves ______________________________________________________________________ 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]