Most of the sea birds on Ascension Island nest on Boatswain Bird Island where there are no rats or feral cats to predate them. However there are about 400,000 wideawake or sooty terns nest on a lava flow known as the Wideawake Fairs close to the air base. We went to see them on both our visits to the island and they are an amazing sight. As there is such a plentiful supply of flying fish (one of their main food sources) all year round the terns here breed every 9-10 months so the first time we saw them they had eggs and this year although we were a little earlier they had chicks.
As you approach the fairs there are thousands of birds flying around you and swooping down over your head. They are incredibly graceful and beautiful.
They lay a single egg just in a small scrape on the ground or even on a rock.
The chicks are dark and mottled and incredibly camouflaged against the lava, so that it is hard to spot them.
There are at least 6 chicks in this photo!
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