Sea Duck Research and Monitoring in the Atlantic Flyway: Development of a monitoring program for the American Common Eider. Part II: Assessing the use High Resolution Imagery for counting males

Project Number: 134

Year Funded: 2010

Lead Institution(s): Canadian Wildlife Service

Project Lead: Scott Gilliland

Email:

Collaborator(s): Francois Bolduc (CWS), Christine Lepage (CWS)

Location: Atlantic Flyway

Focal Species: Common Eider (Somateria mollissima)

Project Description: In our last report (SDJV 134: Part I), we found that the repeatability of population estimates using aerial counts of male Common Eiders in spring was very low, and comparisons with nest counts suggested that visual counts of males may underestimate colony size by 2.5 to 3.8 times. Bird surveys conducted using aerial images are not prone to observer errors counting which can be problematic when the encounter rates or group sizes are high. Here we report some preliminary work to assess the use of very high spatial resolution image data for counting male Common Eiders.