43 11-23-63 Today I spent quite a bit of time simply wandering around looking to see what research programs can be best implemented here during the three weeks I spend here before heading back to the states. Certainly there will not be the opportunity to do much of the sophisticated work here that can be accomplished at Kure because of the fact that there are too many people here which will interfere with routines and destroy the naturalness of any investigations. Certainly banding and the collection of accidentals are the programs of emphasis, and on the South end of Eastern we should be able to establish areas of study nests, and a few vegetation plots. However, without the equipment available at Kure, much of this will of necessity be tenative work. In the AM visited the commissary to see about a Bolex Rex: The project should have a good movie camera available, and since I plan to buy this model, I thought it best to see about this here. In the afternoon after the soaking ritual of the thumb I got out and put on 100 gooney bands, finding only two banded birds: Again the question arises, where are the banded birds, and more importantly how many are banded on this atoll. From my own snooping about, probably less than one in 5 gooneys is tagged here. In the evening the fire chief shanghaied us for dinner and pleasuries. 11-24-63 Slept in today, and then up to find that the flights arrang- ed by Bill for getting the building to Kure were off: We were both annoyed, and to avoid stewing and cussing too much we went to look for some reported red-headed gooneys ( Which we must have tagged at Kure and painted there. ), and down into the over-run pond to look at the ducks and shorebirds there. While there we noted a large number of dead Laysan albatross ( apparently from aircraft collisions ). At least eight ducks were in the ponds - 3 of the small dark " scaup-like duck " of which we now have 2 specimens, 1 green-winged teal, 1 pintail ( Juvenile ? ), two ducks with a faint speculum, small and generally dark, and one large duck which was probably a Gadwall with a prominent speculum in flight. Many Sanderling, Plovers, Turnstones, and at least 6 Sharp-tailed sandpipers and one other Arolia ( a curlew sandpiper ? ) were seen. Quite a number of tattlers were present also. Two Curlew were seen. We then returned to the BOQ to find that the flight to Kure had been reinstated and then left to SAR hanger for that. While there and waiting for the plane, Bill talked the Air Ops officer into flying another flight back to back, and after the