So, as is usual, Enderbury was 
didn’t accomplish a whole hell 
we could have really clobbered 
1900C Sooty Tern Bands left, 
then Enderbury with a dark nig 
a frustrating island, 
of a lot. If we had 
the Sooty Terns. 
We f d be out now if we 
ht or two. 
A lot of running around 
had just two dark nights 
it stands now, we only have 
could have hit Hull and 
' Since everything was so lousy on Enderbury we spent a great dead of b me 
putting clastic wing streamers on -re ter Frigatebi rds. V.e axk didn’t tag anything 
but nesting adults. Boy is that slow work. During our stay we managed, to tag 
295 of the miserable thihgs after first banding them. They are just a litVi.e 
to jumpy to really do much with unless you work on nearly fledged birds. On Rowland 
we got the grand total of 10 tagged because they were so jumpy, so few and aiso 
because we devoted most of our attentions to Sooty Terns. u n McKean we managed 
to tag 21 in the course of one afternoon but that was all. Some of the streamer 
color combinations don’t show up well on birds in flight. White shows up the 
best as you can imagine. At anyrate, on the next trip you can check them out 
on the various islands to see what effect if any the tagging has had on the 
_ _ _ ^ M • « t * i % 1 ^ ^ 
bird’s -— especially on 
where we have hit them the hardest. 
I can’t figure Blue-faced boobies out this trip. Remember how the big 
evening flights were on Howland on my first trip in February? There was almost 
nothing coming into Howland during the evenings we spent there. Birds straggled 
into the island in singles and twos and threes and that was all. -‘•here were 
only three small clubs on Howland along the windward side. x he big club, that 
is normally found down|near the Lesser Frigate colony, wasn’t there at all. 
Very few nesting birds have been found anywhere and no island population has 
exceeded 1000 birds. On Enderbury there were only two small clubs and just a 
few singles and roosting pairs scattered around. The big club that is usually 
near the house wasn’t there at all. Paul couhted the biris in sight one evening 
and came up with a total of 465 including a club on the far shore. As the result 
we have banded 434 new Blue-face and have only handled 1010 returns. 
* 
else. 
There 
Red-footed 3oobies were nesting in large numbers 
..only 7 pair with eggs on Howland and not many 
was only a very small number of roosting birds 
on Enderbury but nowhere 
mere than th t on McKean, 
on both islands. 
Red-tailed Tropicbirds have been almost completely absent all over --we’ve 
banded only 51 so far and just a few of these were nestlings. 
Biff surprise....they found a colony of Wedgetails on Canton Island and 
oanded 14 along with 507 Gray-backed Terns and 28 -ooty Terns. 
1 am beginning to suspect that this ship will be used on the April—June ATF 
f ^ip. The officers all talk like they expect it to happen. The captain put in 
special for this cruise so the attitude of the ship has been somewhat different 
from that of the others I’ve been on. The atmosphere is really different from the 
ethers. Work day begins at 8 and stops at 11:30 with the crew having the rest 
of the day off. If they run a second trip the only people on here that v/ill 
be really PO f ed will be the 10-15 Brown Baggers. When we asked if they would 
mind if we collected a few birds on the way to Samo* the answer was: "Hell no, 
that will be good man overboard drill and will give the junior officers some 
practice in docking.” When Merrill went, after centrifuging blood and asked 
to be taken back to shore whenever they were ready to send the boat in (fully 
expecting, as on previous trips, that a boat would go in around 4 pm) they asked 
him what time h# would like to go in and when he asked if right away would be 
too soon they said "Hell no, that’s what were here for.” 
