Journal Feb 11 Birnie The paint wears off in a couple of months and using a different color for each island, then you saw a group of banded birds and one with a different color than for that island, the person could make a special effort to get the number instead of grabbing a bird he banded the night before. If everybody painted each band string before they band so that everybody banding average would jump up because they wouldn't be wasting time Friday up and reading numbers of the previous nights banding. I know out of 1500 birds a night my average would jump up 300 birds for about a minute times by everybody to paint the band strings. I also think it would help get more returns by eliminating wasted times of picking up your own (and fellow banders) birds of that night. A big turtle (150 lbs) came up on shore probably a moth ago and died while digging a hole. Collected barnacles off it, no tag. (I think one of the projects big mistakes is not having turtle tags which Dr Carr would gladly let us have. I personally could have banded 7 so far. And I have never gone to the leeward just turtles are abundant.