Excuse errors in my haste. the 1988 article in American Birds about a
large-billed tern confirmed by photograph was found in New Jersey. The
only Ohio record remains "Occurrence of a Large-Billed Tern (Phaetusa
simplex) in Ohio published in American Birds in 1954. The author of the
NJ rightly judged the Ohio specimen as less persuasive as it did not
supply a specimen. The drawing submitted with the Ohio find does not
look like a perfect rendering of the photo from the New Jersey
observers; higher powers than I will decide this; the NJ article
mentions the Ohio occurrence and an earlier one reported in Illinois,
but pointedly records that the NJ "is the first known occurrence of
Phaetusa fully documented for North America." Certainly good photos like
those in the 1988 NJ account
(https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/nab/v043n05/p01275-p01276.pdf)
are more persuasive than a drawing or an account such as those in Ohio's
1954 bird. If nothing else the other two birds serve to add some weight
to Ohio's.
Bill Whan

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