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 contains the results from surveys of Wandering Albatrosses (Diomedea exulans) on Macquarie Island. The majority of the surveys were conducted at the Caroline Cove colony which contains 59% of the Wandering Albatrosses found on Macquarie Island. Observations were made for 41 consecutive days between 5 December 1975 and 14 January 1976, and for 103 consecutive days between 25 November 1976 and 7 March 1977. Occasional observations were made of birds at other locations on Macquarie Island. Each bird in the colony was banded for identification, sexed and had its plumage scored. The times of arrival and departure, numbers present, interaction and behaviour were observed, and weather conditions were noted irregularly throughout the day. The results are listed in the documentation.

A systematic search for banded Antarctic petrels, Southern fulmars, Cape petrels and Skuas was conducted at Hop Island in the Rauer Group during the 2015/16 field season. Areas on Hop Island where banding had taken place previously were searched for banded birds. The data documents two resights that were made and an opportunistic resight on Gardner Island near Davis. Please refer to the Seabird Conservation Team Data Sharing Policy for use, acknowledgement and availability of data prior to downloading data.

This file contains a banding report Wilkes station in 1966. The observations were made of: Adelie penguins Silver-grey petrels The hard copy of the file has been archived by the Australian Antarctic Division library.

Metadata record for data from ASAC Project 2301 See the link below for public details on this project. ---- Public Summary from Project ---- This study develops and combines the latest molecular and electronics technology into a comprehensive investigation of diet and food-web relationships of Southern Ocean predators (whales, seals, penguins) and commercial marine resources (krill, fish, squid). This type of information is essential for ecosystem models that set sustainable catch limits for fisheries. From the abstract of the referenced paper: We describe seven group-specific primer pairs that amplify small sections of ribosomal RNA genes suitable for identification of animal groups of major importance as prey items in marine ecosystems. These primer sets allow the isolation of DNA from the target animal groups from mixed pools of DNA, where DNA-based identification using universal primers is unlikely to succeed. The primers are designed for identifying prey and animal diets, but could be used in any situation where these animal groups are to be identified by their DNA. Progress report from the 2006/2007 Season: Overall objective This new multi-year initiative project within the AMLR program aims to develop and combine the latest molecular and electronics technology to facilitate a comprehensive investigation of appropriately scaled and strategically located trophodynamics of Southern Ocean higher marine predators and commercial marine living resources. The objectives and early experimental design are largely responsive to needs determined by the Australian Antarctic Division's core-function obligations to CCAMLR, as well as other international organisations, the most relevant of which are the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and Southern Ocean Global Ocean Ecology Dynamics (SO-GLOBEC). Traditionally studies of diet of higher predators have often relied upon the use of a single, uncalibrated, methodology, and samples are usually collected in a manner that precludes stratification by age and sex class. Such studies are often subordinate experiments to a larger overall project. In contrast, the power of this new initiative project will be its focus on calibration across a suite of established and novel molecular and macroscopic techniques, feeding trials in controlled situations, direct linkage of samples to age and sex classes, and a detailed knowledge of the foraging behaviour of a sub-set of sampled animals. The parallel development and incorporation of electronic tools to measure predator foraging ecology further strengthens this work. In order to achieve the aims of this study a multi-disciplinary, widely collaborative and multi-streamed program has been developed. Methodological development underpins the potential power of this project to delivery its objectives. The detailed design-phase of incorporating these new approaches into an experimental framework will follow this developmental phase. In order to best represent the sub-objectives of each phase of this study, the work has been divided into the following core components: * Experimental Design (phase 1: methodological development) * Development of DNA-based molecular techniques to measure prey harvesting * Validation trials of molecular techniques * Modelling/analysis to develop a matrix of methodologies to best predict prey composition in predator diet * Development of electronic equipment to measure prey harvesting * Validation trials of electronic equipment * Experimental Design (phase 2: ecological experiments) * Integrated, question driven, field experiments Some components of this work will run contemporaneously (eg. development of molecular and electronic tools). This project has now been completed. The novel DNA based methods for studying animal diet have been researched thoroughly in controlled conditions and demonstrated to be useful and an advance on existing methods. The DNA based dietary methods have also been successfully applied to studying the diet of Blue whales, Fin whales, Antarctic fur seals, Macaroni penguins, Antarctic krill and bottlenose dolphins.

This file contains a map of banding stations for a distribution study of south polar skuas. The map is of the entire Antarctic continent and shows stations from the International Geophysical Year, 1957-1958 and from the US Navy Operation, Deep Freeze II, 1956-1957. The hard copy of the map has been archived by the Australian Antarctic Division library.

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.

A GPS survey of seabirds on Heard Island during the Australian Antarctic Program's 2000/01 expedition. This layer is stored as two datasets (polygon and point) in the Geographical Information System (GIS). Polygon data represent flying bird and penguin colony extents. Point data represent nest locations and the location of the observation point for flying birds and penguins.

This dataset contains the results from satellite tracking the movements of Adelie Penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) from Magnetic Island near Davis Station, Antarctica. By the use of satellite fixes the foraging locations of the penguins were determined. Monitoring occurred during the 1993-94 and 1994-95 summer seasons. This work was completed as part of ASAC project 2205 (ASAC_2205), 'Adelie penguin research and monitoring in support of the CCAMLR Ecosystem Monitoring Project'. Further work in the Davis area was completed under other projects.

This file contains a biology report from the Windmill Islands in 1962-1963. The report was compiled by F. Soucek. Data were collected from Ardery Island and Wilkes Station. Species included in the report are: Silver grey petrels Antarctic petrels Pintado petrels Snow petrels The hard copy of the file has been archived by the Australian Antarctic Division library.