all the gr. frigate nestlings. Then we moved on until we came to a stand 
of dead Cordia around the W end of a 20 T guano pile: there red-foots were 
nesting in smaller numbers - 40 or so; also Hawaiian noddies had 1 6 eggs and 
4 nestling which I banded. We saw three fiary terns in the area, so far the 
only ones seen on the island. 
We went on to the N beach crest, finding only occasional blue-faced nests. 
Paul and I found three turtle skeletons and one newly-hatched corpse which had 
been dead for a short time. Walked the long hot walk back to camp, seeing one 
Baker bird, and collapsed for the afternoon. Later, toward sundown, we banded 
500 lesser frigate nestlings in the colony near camp. 
11 November 
Went out at 1 AM again after blue-faced boobies. Paul, Dick and I worked 
them until dawn. They were far more nervous than the birds on Birnie for 
instance, and so it was slow progress. Fred, Doug and Bob worked red-footed 
boobies in the Cordia , taking color notes. At dawn I walked back along the 
beach crest looking for shearwaters but had no luck. We had all observed a 
Christmas Island shearwater, a record for the island, the previous dusk and it 
had flown directly toward the S rock area, as have the other shearwaters 
(unidentified) that have been seen. 
At 7:00 we left with the guided Tour for the other lesser frigate nestlings 
near the N Messerschmidtia patch. Banded 500 of them and then did 500 greater 
frigate nestlings in the nearby bushes. After finishing our bands Paul and I 
started out in opposite directions with binoculars for a shore survey. We each 
covered about 4 mi. of the 8 mi. circumference. This path, not covered by 
Enderbury Tours, is about 2 l/2 mi. of broken coral rock and 5 l/2 mi. of sand 
with rocks. An interesting difference in our counts was that I, on the S end, 
counted 120 golden plovers while Paul on the N saw only 2, though there seemed 
little difference in the respective natures of the coastline. I also saw 2 
fairy terns, 28 bristle-thighed curlews, l48 Ruddy-turnstones, 25 wandering 
tattlers, and one unidentified dark mottled brown bird with light eye stripe, 
dark bill and legs, a light brown cap, and mid-way in size - between a plover 
and a turnstone. No call heard and nothing marked about flight or walk. 
Banded a red-tailed ttopicbird nestling and a gray-backed tern nestling and 
the way back. 
In the afternoon several boobies and frigates were collected; also gekkos 
and skinks from the buildings and wall of our habitations, getting a good 
series of both. After dark Paul and I had to catch 13 sooty terns to finish off 
a string. This was harder than it sound as all the sooties are in the air in 
between-breeding season T s restleness. OUt of a flock of about five hundred 
a diving crashing attack by us both yielded three birds, and it went like that 
for the whole 13 . 
12 November 
Up shortly after midnight again to band boobies, this time toward the N end. 
We stopped at the lesser frigate colony to band adults; Dick and I left the 
others there to work red-foots and Hawaiian noddies in the Cordia by the guano 
pile until it became too light to catch anymore b 
Packed up the gear and turned the shacks back over to the hermit crabs for 
another three months. Ship s s boat came in at 0800 and we left for the first 
time with both boats almost dry. 
