A. H. Anderson 
1964 
Birnie 
o November £ont . ) 
midmorning Paul and I banded Fairy terns (86) around the S rum and interior 
and got some returns. Also found several common noddy nestlings which we 
banded around the lagoon. 
After noon we all took fish poison to the N W coast and came up wi6h a 
relatively small number of specimens. Most of the species had been caught 
at the other fishcollecting islands - surgeon fish, wrasses, a few eels, 
butterfly fish, blennies, killer whales, etc. 
Paul, Dick and I made a futile and circuitous circuit of the island 
looking for more common noddy chicks finding two (2). Ate and slept till 
noonset . 
9 November Birnie - - Enderbury 
Arose at 1 AM to send the whole force out equipped with bands for boobies, 
common noddies, Hawaian noddies, and fairy terns. Fred and Dick did several 
hundred common noddies and Hawaiians from large roosting clubs on the N 
interior. Common noddies could be picked up fairly often while one walked 
between roosting boobies and I almost finished a string on them at odd 
moments; they became impossible to catch when the first light of dawn came with- 
out nets and great guile. We caught most of the boobies by dawn and trooped 
back for the chore of dissmantling and packing gear. Skinned a few odd birds 
and finished a few odd bands at the last minute and left at 0800. 
Barely had time to repack gear as Enderbury was only 37 miles away. Landed 
at 13:30 and moved into the headquarters for Enderbury guided Tours, Ltd. 
(very ltd.). Moved off soon (after shovelling several thousand hermit crabs out of 
the shacks) to scout the S half of the island: Banded blue-faced booby nestlings 
and counted nests, banded R-t tropicbirds, banded and counted brown booby nestlings 
and nests, counted greater frigate nestlings in the Messerschmidtia and scattered 
in loose groups on Sida and Lepturus , banded and counted red -foot nestlings and 
nests in Cordia and Messerschmidia , and gimped TT home ,T . Slept while the sooty 
club formed a hundred yards from our shacks. 
10 November 
All up at one to do the usual: band blue-faced and get blood samples from 
everything available. Took 20 blue-faced samples, 20 red-foots, and some sooty 
terns. Worked the club for about half an hour, getting many returns from Phoenix 
several from Birnie, several from Howland and 2 from Baker. Then we tried to 
work the roosting sooty terns by the lagoon but they all flew. Dick, Doug and 
I walked over to the SE red-foot colony to get the samples in a hurry before we 
were caught by dawn. Then we took 10 lesser and ten greater frigates to total 
100 samples. The ship was meant to be in at 0800 and we all feared that our 
work would be wasted when the ship crawled nonchallantly on the horizon. 
They came in at 0900. 
At 7 : 30 all but Dick set out northward for our survey of the other half of 
the island. We spread out four across, counting and banding; Doug and I hit 
the tropic birds near the edge nesting under large flat coral rocks, banding 
about 20 and getting several returns. We stopped at the several acres of 
Messerschmidtia to band all the red-foot nestlings (over a hundred) and count 
