Week 4 Ascension

Week 4 - 

Monday 28th November – On Monday Anna and I were back at letterbox to help out with seabird monitoring, but this time we were split up and Anna went with Sophie and Laura to help with the annual seabird census where they count all of the nesting masked boobies and brown boobies. I was helping Toby (the MPA Plastics Project Coordinator) with his new brown booby plastic study, which aims to quantify the number of boobies using plastic in their nests which they make. We were looking for nesting brown boobies, when we found them I acted as scribe and Toby carried out his data collection, he would first walk carefully up to the booby as to reduce disturbance and I would note the time he walked up to them and then the time he encouraged them off their nests, some of the boobies would stay close whilst he took a photo of the nest with a meter stick for scale, put down a numbered nest stone and took any plastic as a sample, I would note down the time he finished and the time the booby returned onto the eggs (noting how many eggs) and whether the booby was male or female. We completed around 17 Study nests and 17 control nests (for these I would approach the booby trying not to flush them from the nest and place nest stones near them and no data collection took place) this is to allow ethics to be considered and check for disturbance with the study. Whilst we were eating lunch I also saw my first Ascension turtles! Two of them swimming in the water below where we were eating lunch in the distance and two others mating with one other trying to get involved! My first mating sea turtles! 

Tuesday 29th November – On Tuesday Anna and I were weeding Pierhead beach. We also got a new TV box so our TV is finally working, we have about 5 working channels BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and bfbsextra, in the evening we were planning on going to Zumba but then were told it wasn’t happening so Ed, Anna and I decided to go for a walk to deadmans beach and watch the sunset. We decided to have a long jump, triple jump and sprint competition and enjoyed the sunset. 

Wednesday 30th November – Anna went to letterbox to help Toby with more of the brown booby study and I went to Green Mountain to do some vegetation cutting with Sunitha and Cain at the restoration garden near dew pond again. After lunch we went down to some of the cottages on the mountain and did some clearing of weeds around the buildings before finding some bananas that were ready for cutting down. I haven’t tried any of the mountain bananas yet but apparently they’re really sweet and yummy so I’m excited to try them, I’ve currently got them outside in a black bag letting them ripen. They’re quite small compared to the bananas you get in the shops but they look cool and I’m excited to try eating one next week. 

Thursday 1st December – Anna and I were with Chrisna and Sunitha doing Mexican Thorn cutting. The trees had so many seed pods it took ages to finish them and Sunitha had Brought her chainsaw so was using that to help speed it up but we still had to check every branch for seed pods which took a while. I was very tired on Thursday so had a very early night!

Friday 2nd December – In the Morning Dee, Anna and I were busy fixing turtle fence at deadmans. We were moving posts which had been put in last year that had been washed out of place and digging to put them back in place and removing old wire ready for new wire. The fence is there to help stop turtles stranding themselves on the rockpools and rocky areas. When we were putting in the last post a huge wave washed over the rocks and Dee and I were submerged in water! My head stayed above but I think Dee went right under! It was a shock but also very funny after. I hopped up and managed to grab the radio which was a bit further up the beach before a second wave took it. Anna and I were in fits of giggles for the rest of the day! After we changed into dry clothes we then collected turtle rakes with Toby and then went around the islands and put our turtle posters around island and then some weeding and to the dump. When we got back to the house in the evening we realised we had left the key inside and Anna had to climb in through the bathroom window to let us in! Quite an eventful day! I then made enchiladas for dinner and Ed came round and had dinner and we watched film Coyote Ugly.

Saturday 3rd December – went to sea rescue trial training in morning and did a chart exercise, had a picnic on deadmans for lunch with Anna and then in the evening went for a letterbox walk with Ed to Devils Riding School – mini grand canyon - and watched the Sunset overlooking the runway/airhead– cloudy but still nice then walked back and returned home and went to the pierhead to see if we could sea any sharks, then came back and watched some TV and watched Spiderman homecoming – offically marks one month since I left the UK!

Sunday 4th December – Anna and I had a chilled morning and made pancakes for breakfast – our weekend tradition, then we did a deep clean of the house and Anna made an Apple Crumble whilst I cleaned the bathroom. We then made some Christmas decorations to put up around the house and then went to the local church christingle service as we both had fond memories of christingle as guides!