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.

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.

Aerial photography (35mm film) of penguin colonies was acquired over the Steinnes Group (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.

Aerial photography (Linhof) of penguin colonies was acquired over the Holme Bay (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).

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.

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.

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).

An occupancy survey on 21 January 2011 found a total of 7 islands along the Wilkes Land coastline had populations of breeding Adelie penguins. The survey was conducted from a fixed wing aircraft and oblique aerial photographs were taken of each occupied site except Haswell Island. The aerial photographs were geo-referenced to a satellite image and the boundaries of penguin colonies were digitised from the geo-referenced photos. Details for each island are: Adams: Photographs taken on 21 January 2011 and geo-referenced to a Quickbird satellite image taken on 30 January 2009 Fulmar: Photographs taken on 21 January 2011 and geo-referenced to a WorldView2 satellite image taken on 6 February 2011 Zykov: Photographs taken on 21 January 2011 and geo-referenced to a WorldView2 satellite image taken on 6 February 2011 Buromskiy: Photographs taken on 21 January 2011 and geo-referenced to a WorldView2 satellite image taken on 6 February 2011 Stroitley: Photographs taken on 21 January 2011 and geo-referenced to a WorldView2 satellite image taken on 6 February 2011 Tokarev: Photographs taken on 21 January 2011 and geo-referenced to a WorldView2 satellite image taken on 6 February 2011 Haswell: No photographs taken, no penguin colonies were digitised Note there are two colony boundary layers in each folder except Adams. One is the original layer mapped as above. The second is an adjusted layer that was created so that the mapped boundaries would land on the exposed rock layer. Mapping of some of the islands contained within the coast layer had been coarsely done using imagery available at the time. Now with more accurate satellite imagery the island mapping could potentially be updated which would more accurately locate these islands. If this occurred, the original colony boundary mapping may be a more appropriate fit. 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.