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Rarely has a morning been so exciting - we learned yesterday that one of the Ascension Island frigatebird eggs is hatching! While not out of the wood yet (the chick still needs to survive to fledging), this will be the first time in 180 years that the species has been able to breed successfully on...

[Viv Booth updates us on her work with the Ascension Island Government Conservation Department] Three weeks on Ascension Island and I’ve seen my first sooty tern at last! When I arrived, I was disappointed to learn that the terns had departed just days before. Five key species are monitored...

Our wonderful friends in Ascension have recently learnt that their bid to the Darwin Initiative for funds to develop a whole-island Biodiversity Action Plan has been successful – which is great news! The project is a joint initiative between the Ascension Island Government, the University of Exeter...

[Posted on behalf of the project team, Catherine Supple and Liza White.] Since the RSPB’s visit to Ascension at the end of last year, the endemic plants project has progressed well (see previous blog for more info ). The main aim of our work is to restore endemic and native plant communities...

Latest news from Nathan and Dane on Ascension Island... At the end of last year we installed two sets of Ascension Island frigatebird decoys on the main island to see if we could attract breeding birds back (read more here ). Just in today, juvenile birds have been seen landing among out plastic friends...

As promised, a brief update now that we have downloaded some of the tracking data. Liz, Richard and Catherine managed an amazing 15 out of 15 retrievals with the data loggers! After a long afternoon and evening re-trapping our masked boobies, they had a night walk back out from Letterbox and arrived...

I'm on my way home today, so I asked Catherine Supple to provide us with some details of the OTEP (Overseas Territories Environment Programme) project that is studying restoration of native and endemic plant communities on Ascension Island. Catherine has only been here a few weeks, and will be on...

The problem with understanding databases is that you end up being the one left in the office to sort them out while everyone else is in the field having fun. So here I am staring at the computer again. Stedson Stroud, the boss, is showing the new Island Administrator around some of the key conservation...

Today we went back down to Letterbox to attach data loggers to masked boobies to find out where they go when not sitting on their eggs – we have very little idea where they forage, or how far afield they travel. (In case you are wondering, the area is called Letterbox because, well, there is a...

A less strenuous weekend, Saturday we met Drew, a volunteer from the American Air Base, and headed out to North West Point. In a landscape of tortured lava, yellow-billed tropicbirds make their scrapes in protected cracks near the sea, while brown boobies have turned the offshore islets white with guano...

(Written yesterday, but I managed to lock up the computer by forgetting the password - not that smart!) We're back from Letterbox and a successful deployment of the first batch of frigatebirds. What looks like a great tan is really a layer of Ascension Island dust, stuck fast with suntan lotion...

The pilot announced our descent into Ascension and all I could see out of either window was ocean all the way to the horizon. Were the white-caps ripples on a calm ocean, or the tips of angry rollers? There was no frame of reference, and then suddenly we were over land and down. My first thought on arrival...

Just below the Equator, Ascension Island is a tiny dot on the map halfway between Africa and South America. At 11pm tonight, I'm setting off with colleague Liz and volunteer Richard for a nine hour flight to one of the longest runways in the world. While the military passengers have a quick cuppa...