Fourteen colonies with breeding Adelie colonies were mapped this season in the Rookery Island group between the 29th November and 14th of December 2015. Subcolonies were mapped by circumnavigating the perimeter on foot while carrying a Garmin GPS (Etrex30) to record the track. When mapping the perimeter of the subcolonies, generally an average buffer distance of 2.5 meters was maintained between the mapper and breeding birds. However on Gibbney and Rookery Island one of the mappers was mapping at a distance between 3 and 5m. Buffer distances were reduced accordingly for the varying tracks to produce a combined average buffer distance of 2m in the final layer. Given this the boundary mapping for these two islands may vary in accuracy. Note on Gibbney and Giganteus there were at least two subcolonies on both islands that were mapped but the density of breeding birds in these mapped sections was much less than that in the surrounding colonies. Subcolonies were tagged with L at the end of their name in the track files. This will not be shown in the final layer and if information on this is needed then the subcolonies can be identified from the original track data or created shapefiles for the individual subcolonies on the island. 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 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.

The dataset comprises Adelie penguin colony boundaries derived from oblique aerial photographs. 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.

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.

All subcolonies on Bechervaise Island were mapped with a hand held GPS (Garmin Legend) on the 9th of January 2013). The mapping was undertaken by Julie McInnes and Helen Achurch. The colonies were mapped at a constant 2m buffer. If subcolonies were less than 2m apart they were mapped in the same outline, colonies greater than 2m apart were mapped separately. The final layer has a 2m buffer around the colony included in the layer. 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 November 2006 found a total of 29 islands in the Robinson Group of islands had populations of breeding Adelie penguins. The boundaries of breeding colonies at 27 of these islands with larger populations were subsequently mapped for abundance surveys by circumnavigating the perimeter of sub-colonies on foot while carrying a Garmin GPS (Legend Cx or Vista C) to log the track taken. The person walking around the sub-colonies maintained a buffer distance of 2-5m between themselves and the penguins at the sub-colony boundary. This buffer distance was reduced to between 1 and 4m in the final shapefiles. 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.

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.

The dataset comprises Adelie penguin colony boundaries on one island in the Stillwell Island group. Boundaries were derived from oblique aerial photographs. 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.

Two colonies with breeding Adelie colonies were mapped this season in the Rookery Island group in conjunction with colony counts. Subcolonies were mapped by circumnavigating the perimeter of sub-colonies on foot while carrying a Garmin GPS (Legend Cx) to log the track taken. The person walking the perimeter of the sub-colonies maintained a buffer distance of approximately 2.5m between themselves and the breeding birds along the sub-colony boundary. This buffer distance was reduced to approximately 2m in the final shapefiles. Please refer to the Seabird Conservation Team Data Sharing Policy for use, acknowledgement and availability of data prior to downloading data.