Scott Shaffer, from Palmyra Atoll, Pacific Ocean. [Scott Schaffer, a research biologist at UC Santa Cruz' Center for Ocean Health at Long Marine Lab, is spending a week on Palmyra Atoll, about 1,000 miles south of Hawai'i, to tag red-footed boobies, a most colorful and amazing bird. He flew on a charter flight from Honolulu to the island, which is privately owned by the Nature Conservancy and managed as a nature reserve, but is administered from Washington, D.C. by the Office of Insular Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior. The surrounding waters, out to the 12-mile limit, were transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and designated as the Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in 2001. The only people who live on the island are its caretakers and visiting scientists. The occasional ocean-sailors stop by, also. The island is usually shrouded in clouds and rain, which often delays flights. Shaffer reported that his landing was a bit tricky because the rain was dumping in buckets and the cloud cover was really low. - ed.]

Today was our first full day on the atoll so we spent most of our time surveying booby colonies and preparing gear. The main island is really amazing, lush with many trees and low lying plants. The most obvious are the coconut trees that really instill thoughts of an island paradise. That and the tropical heat combined with high humidity. When it rains, it really rains, but the showers seem to come quickly, and then move on.

I had many first encounters today that always occur upon visiting a new site. As we walked out to the booby colonies, I came across my first coconut crab -- really interesting animals with black to purple coloration. And did I mention big? Wow, these crabs are size of a small bowling ball. Also had my first encounter with a black-tip reef shark. I was in a foot of water less than 3 feet from shore and this shark came swimming right over to me. The shark was about 3 feet in length and was so graceful in the water. I splashed a bit of water when it came within 2 feet of my leg, and it quickly darted away.

The research station is also regularly visited by manta rays. This evening, they turned on the flood lamps next to the boat launch and within minutes, a single manta ray showed up swimming figure-eight patterns in the shallow water. It seems that the plankton on which the mantas feed swarm with the lights. Thus, it's an easy meal for the large ray.

Our search for booby colonies totaled to two dozen. We are quite anxious get to work deploying the GPS tags to see where the birds venture off to when they leave to the atoll to search for food. The tags have such high resolution (one location every 10 seconds at GPS accuracy) that we'll be able to study the fine-scale foraging patterns of the birds. I'm told that large flocks of boobies can be seen feeding only a few miles outside the atoll. Perhaps our birds will find something interesting. Have to get the tags out first. Tonight, we plan to deploy our first round of tags. Stay tuned, because we should be getting data soon.