Galapagos field notes, v579
Page 541
Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Contributed by Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley. | www.biodiversitylibrary.org
Transcription
March 4 on board "Golden Bear", Coos Is. to San Diego, Cal., of 9, then 6 (twice). There were some scattered aggregations, but not groups in the sense of birds separated by less than 1 wing span as the 9 were. The distribution of all birds was irregular. The three Sooty Terns were together. From 8 to 9:30 Saw 36 Brown Boobies, another Sooty Tern and 1 Wedge tail Shearwater. The Boobies were distributed much as before. They are mostly flying out from shore and don't approach the ship as often as Red-foots. Discontinued a careful watch and was unable to do much the rest of the day. About 10 Schroeter pointed out a feeeling assemblage of 200-300 Brown Boobies, with prob. as man. Manx Shearwaters below them. Saw almost 1 Jaeger bird, nothing else, and saw a few more Boobies and a couple more Manx Shearwaters. Spent most of the midday skimming the birds collected Marsh &. All the Pinnatorics had completely unossified skulls as far as I could tell - the dark 3's skull was much broken and I could not be sure of it. They were somewhat gone and I attempted no stomach content analysis. The only molt noted was tivers in the femoral tracts of 2 of the young birds. The yellow Warblers were in top plumage; legs pink. No molt on the Gygis, but it lost feathers easily. It had an asymetrical sear on one side of the base of the neck. The blue on the bill had already almost