Hachman, C.C. 1967 March 22 Southeast Island, P+H Reef It was a delicious + thorough enjoyable meal. Tonight Ernie + I cooked talents & fixed a dinner consisting of freeze dried pork chops, potatoes, apple sauce + corn fed (off the reef). This was pretty fair but didn't compare with the lobster meal of the evening before. Just before dusk Ernie + I hauled about 200 Black f Alligator chiles with his hands. After dark with the moon nearly 3/4 full (it cleared around 2:30 in the afternoon) it was impossible to capture ray snakes. I can many hand with snake but couldn't get close to many of them. The Sooties were down on the ground in several places but were difficult to capture. By running through them with a net and by standing in one place waiting just as they flew by I was able to testune & bowled 8 Sooty Terns. I can many more land birds than these but could not get close enough to capture them. I made 5 circuits of the island + the settled Terns for about 2 hours before finally giving up completely + catching out. Caught the following landed birds: 11 Red f. Booby, 1 Brown S. Petrel, 8 South Janet + 1 Layson Teal between 8:30 pm and 1:45 am. I didn't try to had any because the would have represented futility at its best. While returning from seal + turtle tagging on the other islands we stopped at one of the many sand spits because it had 9 scale seals (actually 14 were on the spit). I jumped out of the boat in my bare feet + walked down the beach to the fr. end. Near that fr. end there was a large area covered with jagged coral rubble. In the middle of the coral rubble sat one of the Layson Teal we had wing-clipped today + released on Southeast Is. I got within 3 feet of the bird before it patterned away into deep water. Apparently the bird had wandered off of Southeast Is. + flew down to this sandspit (about 4 miles from Southeast Is.). Set up at 3 am + changed the batteries to the light used by the ship for bearings. Hachman, C.C. 1967 Field Notes March 23 Southeast Is., P+H Reef Woke up around 4 am to find everyone shuffling around mumbling. She had gotten out of bed to pull the boat up high on the beach. They all shuffled back in (still mumbling to themselves) around 4:15 and went back to sleep. Set up at 7 am + sat around the morning's camp fire until about 8 am. Ernie, I, & Ernie + I the spent the next two hours counting alligator chicks. After finishing with the alligators chicks I got out all of my gear + made a census of the islands terns, presumed eggs, describe nests + weigh chicks of several species. Finished then around 1:30 and returned to camp, ate lunch + helped break camp. The whole boat came in at 2:30 and John + I returned to the ship with the bulk of the gear. John + I spent the rest of the afternoon sorting sorting gear + repairing. When they + the others returned we all pitched in and stored the rest of the gear. They had stayed on the island in order to spray the mustard thistles was growing so profusely there. We were steering toward Midway Is. by 6 p.m. Spent the rest of the evening until 11:30 catching up on field notes + species accounts. Odds + ends: While on Swan Island yesterday I hunked down to measure a frigate egg and felt something crawl on me. The area near the frigate nest was infested with ticks. I collected a few of the bird but didn't have time to very many. In the dark this spent on Ernie (about 40 minutes) I was bitten at least 4 times - several behind my right knee. Found several injected ticks later on. Here are the first and only type I've seen all throughout. Have checked all other islands but haven't seen any. Couldn't find any with Ernie. John said he had one crawling on his leg on Southeast Is. but I couldn't find any on either of the two nights we were there.