Journal Feb 1) Bimini I. I am convinced we are losing 90% of our #8 Blue faced boobies. They are just too large for the boobies. I've always been amazed at the high number of immature blue faced boobies around that are unbanded. We banded every chick in the phenoix group for the last two years, yet 1/4 of the young birds don't have bands. Last night I found a damn that the #8 slipped on and off the foot without any effort. This has happened many times before. But a new thing also happened last night. I found a subadult with a green paint ring around the neck (old painting) and no band. Conclusion! there ought to be some way we could colorwork or tag a bird with a #8 band so we could tell if it's lost. Another thing we ought to paint our band strings as we use them when we band sooties and woodies. This way the bander could tell at a glance (without wasting time by picking up the bird and reading number) whether the birds was banded that night or not. This would also help get more returns because if one has a group of woodies (that flush at the slightest disturbance) one won't grab the wrong bird if he can see it was banded that night or the nights before.