Development of a monitoring program for the American Common Eider Part II: Assessing the use of high-resolution imagery for counting males
Project Number: 134
Year Funded: 2010
Lead Institution(s): Canadian Wildlife Service
Project Lead: Scott Gilliland
Collaborator(s): Francois Bolduc (CWS), Christine Lepage (CWS)
Location: Atlantic Flyway
Focal Species: Common Eider (Somateria mollissima)
Project Description: In SDJV Project 135 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.
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