I am now thinking of using a small remote controlled helicopter like an ardrone outfitted with a hd camera and GPS to document the start of nesting and to get a count. The islands are small, wide open, have low vegetation, the chopper has a very low noise. Not sure how the birds will react.
There has been some research done out of McGill University:
http://www.mcgill.ca/reporter/40/18/chabot/
Problematic. A small helicopter will generate noise, and its movement and shadow may be interpreted as a predator attack. Better to use a small helium blimp or kite, which can fly silently and do not move as much. See, for example: http://www.geospectra.net/kite/new_england/new_england.htm
We tried 2 similar approaches to make pictures of wetlands from above from the air, in order to measure development of macrophyte vegetation at small wetlands/oxbows: a glider and a rogallo wing equipped with motor. We did not count bird colonies actually, but we think, that the rogallo wing could be of better use for this purpose from our 2 options, even if it also makes some noise.
Hi Keith, it is called also hang glider, it is used usually as a paraschute-wing, to jump from some high mountain, but the hang glider used by us was equipped with a small engine, so it could tart from the ground practically from anywhere. But, of course, we needed to hire a trained pilot.
Have you considered kite aerial photography? This paper titled: "Using Kite-based Aerial Photography for Conducting Adelie Penguin Censuses in Antarctica" might help. Fraser et al. 1999. See attached file.
There has been some work with Raven UASs at the USGS (http://uas.usgs.gov/)
Hi Keith. We are using one to count Kelp Gulls and other birds in a large land based colony in Plettenberg Bay South Africa. It is a wonderful tool, and we have got great results so far. We initially used a glider drone which was virtually silent, and although a few birds hassled the drone (flew behind it), all incubating birds stayed on the nest - so much better than moving through the colony. based on our initial counts in November, our colony is around 2000 pairs, making it the largest land-based colony we know of in the sub-region. We are now switching to a quad-copter drone, that is relatively quiet and can house a GoPro camera. It is MUCH cheaper, and I am confident it will work. You can see pics of our first count on our Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.234162593381319.56058.116306201833626&type=1).
Hello, It is not exactly what you are looking for, but it is recent in the media and it could be of interest. Look at < http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/robot-penguins-spy-on-bird-colony >
Good luck!
Take a look to this application on birds.
http://biodiversitylandscapeecologylab.blogspot.com.es/2011/11/new-article-unmanned-aircraft-systems.html
We have one small UAV that we are using for mapping applications. In the user's course the instructors told us: "Be careful with the birds, they don't like UAV very much and usually they attack them if the systems are near of their nests.
We've got a paper on this. You can also check out the UAV in action in the link below.
During testing, the birds seemed more perturbed by the ground-tracking team than the UAV.
https://youtu.be/8hmavNTzWdw
Conference Paper Online Localization of Radio-Tagged Wildlife with an Autonom...
We used two types of drones on Kelp Gull colonies in South Africa. A silent fixed wing "glider" worked well, but the quad copter was too noisy and caused too much disturbance. Glider worked well, had a few non-incubating birds follow it, but most incubating birds ignored it...
There is currently discussion regarding the use of aerial photos and UAVs for censusing urban gulls as part of the Seabirds Count census across the British Isles. They are testing the quality of aerial photos. If I see something promising reported, I'll try to report back here.
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