6 ) Dave noted 2 clubs of about 60 birds each at the NW tip of the island - 
possibly your club of 100 on North beach?? 
His notebook entries do not distinguish between birds in clubs and 
those dispersed along the beach crest - so the only data available are 
those you mightthave. 
5a) I don't know about dependent immatures. I'd consider most of the 
trios (2 ads & 1 imm) distributed around the island as dependents, but 
where do you draw the line? When does "dependency" stop?? So, I'd esti¬ 
mate from at least 50 (definitely non-fliers) to 300 or more , depending 
on use of term and would lean toward the higher figure. 
6a) Did you ever watch long enough to see what happens to birds that are 
knocked into the water? Do they disgorge before taking off? Are they re- 
a^ttacked when they leave? I'm curious but never noticed. 
7) We may have erred in sexing Browns but IB the banding data are correct 
females outnumbered males 20 to 9. I agree that the estimate of 4° birds 
must be pretty close to correct. >• j. \ 
8 _)_ Based on 486 birds handled I'd estimate 1500-2000 birds present. This 
is several times higher than the estimate (?) I gave you in the field / I 
know. As late as the 4th, very few birds had been banded in some areas 
(e.g., the north end) and in one area only 2 of 56 had been banded.. I 
worked the Scaveola along the East beach north of camp on three nights 
and was still getting a high percentage of new birds (though numbers did 
decrease). Also on the 3rd I captured all 17 birds in an isolated tree 
and only 1 had been banded. 
8 a) I'm puzzled about the nest count - the only figures that I can find 
in the green notebooks and banding data are for 14 large downy chicks; 
(5 at the south end; the remainder scattered around the island in Scaveola ). 
It seems that there were more birds than this but perhaps I'm. thinking 
of immatures still on nests.(many of the 71 immatures were prob. dep. 
9) I pulled all of the Red-foot banding data for the first three nights 
(31 Aug - thru 2 Sept) including some omitted from the catalogue. The 
results are pretty similar to yours: 230 birds": 160 adults (70%); 48 
subadults (21%); 22 immatures (09%). Some of the immatures were probahy 
dependent young though not so marked. 
I also made several counts to get some idea of age structure of 
roosting birds as follows: In the NW part of island, 123 birds (118 ad? 
15 immatures); In the NE part; 56 birds (47 ads; |Iimm»; 8 subad); single 
Messerschmitia tree (west central): 17 birds (12 ads; 4 imms; 1 ldc). 
None of these counts was very extensive because I always seemed to get 
side-tracked with something else. 
Based on the various counts and memory I would estimate 400 dependent 
immatures (including those flying but still with adults ); those still at 
the nest site during the day not over a fourth of that number. 
10 ) I now think that the population estimate is too low (based on 158 birds 
handled). On 4 September I checked 44 birds in the north roost and only 
one was painted. Birds were tame and easily approached. Of the 44 birds 
handled, 37 were adult (28 females; 9 males) and 7 were subadults. 
