The dataset contains boundaries of nest areas of surface nesting flying seabirds at numerous breeding sites across Prydz Bay, Antarctica. The sites are at islands in the Rauer Group, the Svenner Islands and two islands (Bluff Island and Gardner Island) off the Vestfold Hills. The boundary data were obtained from aerial photos of slopes where flying seabirds had been previously observed. The aerial photos were taken on 1 December 2017. Marcus Salton and Kim Kliska conducted the aerial photography and delineated the GIS boundaries representing the nesting areas. The database of potential Adelie penguin breeding habitat as described by the metadata record 'Sites of potential habitat for breeding Adelie penguins in East Antarctica' (http://data.aad.gov.au/metadata/records/AAS_4088_Adelie_Potential_Habitats) was used to associate flying seabird nest areas to a particular island and to structure how the boundaries are stored. The Adelie penguin breeding site database has a unique identifying code for every island in East Antarctica, and the islands are aggregated into spatial sub-groups and then spatial groups. The file structure in which the boundaries are stored has a combination of ‘island’, ‘sub-group’ and ‘spatial group’ (or region) at the top level (eg VES_SG_10 contains all boundaries in spatial group VES (Vestfold Hills and islands) and sub-group 10). Within each sub-group folder are folders for each island where photos were taken (eg IS_72276 is Gardner Island in the VES_SG_10 group). The data is comprised of: (i) a polygon shapefile for each island on which flying bird nest areas were observed; and (ii) a single polygon shapefile for each of Rauer Group, Svenner Islands and Vestfold Hills in which the polygons in (i) are combined. The polygons in the shapefiles have a Type attribute with values ranging from A to E. A = Nests present B = Searched and no nests present C = Nests or salt stains (the investigators were unable to decide whether what they were seeing was nests or salt stains) D = Snow cover E = Not searched

This dataset consists of two shapefiles created by Darren Southwell of the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) by digitising the boundaries of adelie penguin colonies at the Rauer Group and the Vestfold Hills. The digitising was done from images resulting from the scanning and georeferencing of aerial photographs taken on 24 November 1993. The aerial photographs were taken for the AAD with a Linhof camera. Records of the photographs are included in the Australian Antarctic Data Centre's Aerial Photograph Catalogue.

The dataset comprises Adelie penguin colony boundaries derived from oblique aerial photographs taken towards the end of the 2014/15 summer between Mawson and Taylor Glacier. The aerial photographs were geo-referenced to AAT coastline polygon data and the boundaries of Adelie penguin colonies were digitised. Please refer to the Seabird Conservation Team Data Sharing Policy for use, acknowledgement and availability of data prior to downloading data.

Aerial photography (Linhof) of penguin colonies was acquired over the Windmill Islands (Eric Woehler). The penguin colonies were traced, then digitised (John Cox), and saved as DXF-files. Using the ArcView extension 'Register and Transform' (Tom Velthuis), The DXF-files were brought into a GIS and transformed to the appropriate islands. Data conforms to SCAR Feature Catalogue which can be searched (refer to link below).

Occupancy surveys in November 2008 (Southwell and Emmerson 2013) found a total of 13 Adelie penguin breeding sites in the Rauer Group. The boundaries of breeding sub-colonies at 12 of these sites were subsequently mapped from vertical aerial photographs taken for abundance surveys on 21-23 November 2009. The remaining breeding site (IS_72922) was photographed obliquely from a helicopter using a hand-held camera on 20 December 2010. Colony boundaries for this site were drawn and digitised by eye. Please refer to the Seabird Conservation Team Data Sharing Policy for use, acknowledgement and availability of data prior to downloading data.

Oblique hand-held photographs were taken of all Adelie penguin breeding colonies at Scullin Monolith from a fixed wing aircraft on 10 December 2010. These photographs were geo-referenced to a Worldview 2 satellite image of both monoliths taken on 26 January 2011 and the colony boundaries in the geo-referenced photos were digitised as shapefiles. Please refer to the Seabird Conservation Team Data Sharing Policy for use, acknowledgement and availability of data prior to downloading data.

Aerial photography (35mm film) of penguin colonies was acquired over some islands north east of Brattstrand Bluff islands (Eric Woehler). The penguin colonies were traced, then digitised (John Cox), and saved as DXF-files. Using the ArcView extension 'Register and Transform' (Tom Velthuis), The DXF-files were brought into a GIS and transformed to the appropriate islands. Update May 2015 - This dataset has been rename from "Brattstrand Bluff penguin GIS dataset" to "Islands NE of Brattstrand Bluff penguin GIS dataset" to better describe the location of the colonies. The penguin colonies are on a small group of islands approximately 12km north east of Brattstrand Bluff. Latitude 69.148 south and longitude 77.268 east. The Data Centre does not have a copy of the original photographs or described GIS data. In May 2015, the Data Centre has attached the following to this record: The DXF file produced by John Cox by digitising the aerial photography. Note this document is not georeferenced. Four photographs taken in 2009 by Barbara Wienecke, Seabird Ecologist, showing penguin colonies on these islands. A shapefile exists of the digitised colonies. The digitising by Ursula Harris, Australian Antarctic Data Centre, was done by georeferencing the DXF drawing over unprocessed Quickbird Image 05NOV15042413-M1BS-052187281010_01_P002. It was done in two parts, the largest island and then the two smaller islands. This allowed for better matching. The accuracy of this data is unknown.

An occupancy survey on 26 January 2012 found 1 island (70166) along the coast between 111 degrees 00'E - 111 degrees 10'E had populations of breeding Adelie penguins. The survey was conducted from a fixed wing aircraft and oblique aerial photographs were taken of the occupied site. The aerial photographs were geo-referenced to the coastline shapefile from the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA, tile E158) and the boundaries of penguin colonies were digitised from the geo-referenced photos with not intentional buffer. Note the quality of the aerial photos was poor and so the resultant boundary mapping will not be very accurate. Also in the Balaena Islands there is a historic record from the 50s of penguins nesting on Thompson Islet (70166). When aerial photos were taken of this island penguins could not be detected. Please refer to the Seabird Conservation Team Data Sharing Policy for use, acknowledgement and availability of data prior to downloading data.

An occupancy survey in January 2011 found a total of 14 islands/sites in Windmill group had populations of breeding Adelie penguins. The boundaries of breeding colonies at 11 of the 14 islands were subsequently mapped for abundance surveys. Four of the islands, Nelly Island, Hollin Island, Midgley Island and Beall Island were mapped from aerial photos taken in January 2011. Images were taken on the 2 January 2011 [Hollin, Midgley, Beall] and 23 January 2011[Nelly]. Mapping involved digitising polygons around sub-colonies from vertical aerial photographs. The boundaries were mapped with a buffer distance of approximately 1-3 m from the perimeter of penguin sub-colonies. Please refer to the Seabird Conservation Team Data Sharing Policy for use, acknowledgement and availability of data prior to downloading data.

Occupancy surveys in November 2009 and December 2010 (Southwell and Emmerson 2013) found a total of 2 Adelie penguin breeding sites in the Bolingen Island group between longitudes 75.333oE-75.912oE. The boundaries of breeding sub-colonies at 1 of these sites (Lichen Island, 73030) were subsequently mapped from vertical aerial photographs taken for abundance surveys on 20 November 2010 (for details of aerial photography see Southwell et al. 2013). The boundaries were mapped with a buffer distance of approximately 1-3 m from the perimeter of penguin sub-colonies. The other breeding site (73156) was photographed obliquely from a helicopter using a hand-held camera on 6 December 2010. Colony boundaries for this site were drawn and digitised by eye. Please refer to the Seabird Conservation Team Data Sharing Policy for use, acknowledgement and availability of data prior to downloading data.