12 
t 
10 - 4-63 
Heaygy rain again during night and most of the day 
overcast. Skinned bird in the AM and in the afternoon KM 
went hunting. A few of the turnstones are very dark and 
I can see no traces of red in their plumages, and some 
of these may be Black Turnstones. Went looking, but 
saw no suspicious birds. Watched a rat feeding on 
puncture weed for ten minutes and then collected it. 
Later saw a Bristle-thighed Curlew feeding on the edge 
of the runway. It was picking a mouse up repeatedly, 
turning it end to end, and after several minutes of this 
and shaking, the curlew swallowed the mouse whole. I 
watched the performance from about 20 leet, and the 
rodent, a Polynesian Rat, was about 1.5-2 inches in body 
length: The Curlew had difficulty in swallowing it. 
On the way back saw another dowitcher fly by, and this 
one seemed larger ( a Long—billed Dowitcher? ) than 
the other one that I collected. Banded all the Masked 
Boobies on the island, color marking them with red paint 
Tprgyztff at the same time. I believe that we have handled 
95-97 percent of all the masked boobiy on this island 
now and that the population is virtually completely 
tagged. We also have color-marked and banded upwards of 
50 Brown Boobies. In the evening after a tantalizing 
Ann-Margret Flick we went banding and tagged over 100 
shearwaters and petrels. A successful day. 
10 - 5-63 
S lept in this morning and then up to skin a 
booby collected last evening. Booby banded and at 
least several years old in immature plumage: Aged 
immatures should help to fill in the holes in our 
knowledge of plumage sequences. Later went tagging seals 
and suprisingly got 15 more making seven recaptures. 
There may be 100 or more seals here. We weighed the 
smallest we've seen yetand it totaled 82 pounds. One 
giant of a $, 112 11 long, 17.5 " high, and 31 inches 
wide I judged to be at least 700 pounds in weight, 
saw another sparrow fly overhead just before dark. 
Bill tried but couldn't find it to collect. Will 
try again tomorrow. Relaxed in the evening to write let¬ 
ters for tomorrow's flight. Work is settxedbanto a rout¬ 
ine and I feel that we are beginning to see some fruit 
to our labors already. 
i 
