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.

An occupancy survey in December 2009-February 2010 and January 2011 found a total of 6 islands along the Knox coast had populations of breeding Adelie penguins. The survey in 2009/10 was conducted from a fixed wing aircraft and oblique aerial photographs were taken of occupied sites. The aerial photographs were geo-referenced to satellite images or the coastline shapefile from the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA, tile E157) and the boundaries of penguin colonies were digitised from the geo-referenced photos. Details for each island are: Merrit: Photographs taken on 1 February 2010 and geo-referenced to LIMA tile E157 Cape Nutt: Photographs taken on 5 January 2010 and geo-referenced to a Quickbird satellite image taken on 17 February 2011 Ivanoff Head: Photographs taken on 27 December 2009 and geo-referenced to LIMA tile E157 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 December 2009-February 2010 and January 2011 found a total of 6 islands along the Knox coast had populations of breeding Adelie penguins. The survey in 2009/10 was conducted from a fixed wing aircraft and oblique aerial photographs were taken of occupied sites. The aerial photographs were geo-referenced to satellite images or the coastline shapefile from the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA, tile E157) and the boundaries of penguin colonies were digitised from the geo-referenced photos. Details for each island are: Merrit: Photographs taken on 1 February 2010 and geo-referenced to LIMA tile E157 Cape Nutt: Photographs taken on 5 January 2010 and geo-referenced to a Quickbird satellite image taken on 17 February 2011 Ivanoff Head: Photographs taken on 27 December 2009 and geo-referenced to LIMA tile E157 Please refer to the Seabird Conservation Team Data Sharing Policy for use, acknowledgement and availability of data prior to downloading data.

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 Svenner 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.

Occupancy surveys in November 2009 and December 2010 (Southwell and Emmerson 2013) found a total of 15 Adelie penguin breeding sites in the Svenner Islands between longitudes 76.50oE to 77.50oE. The boundaries of breeding sub-colonies 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. When photos of Island 73036 were viewed there was no colony to map so only 14 islands were mapped. 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 2008 (Southwell and Emmerson 2013) found a total of 31 Adelie penguin breeding sites off the Vestfold Hills. The boundaries of breeding sub-colonies at 26 of these sites were subsequently mapped from vertical aerial photographs A further two breeding sites (IS_72295 and McCallie Rocks_72205) were photographed obliquely from a helicopter using a hand-held camera on 10 January. Colony boundaries for 72295 were drawn and digitised by eye. Colony boundaries for 72295 were sketched onto a rough island polygon from the oblique photo without being rectified. 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.

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.