Loud sooty terns at Wide Awake airfield, Ascension Island
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Loud sooty terns at Wide Awake airfield, Ascension Island

by Martin de Graaf

Thousands of sooty terns nest at Ascension Island, a remote volcanic rock in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The birds are aggressive and very loud, hence their local nickname 'wide awakes'. Wide Awake Airfield (or more simply RAF Ascension [ASI]) was the base for aircraft measuring microphysical properties of stratocumulus clouds around Ascension Island during the summer of 2017.