Unmanned Aerial System Surveys: Behavioral and Abundance Count Data, Summer 2021

This folder includes the data collected in the field as part of efforts to assess the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) to survey seabird colonies in the Gulf of Alaska, summer of 2021. It includes a .csv file "FieldData_UASFlightLogs_2021.csv" with the details on all UAS launch events including launch and flight parameters (time and location of launch, time and location of recovery, flight identification number), in-field weather observations, altitude/distance from colony, and speed during photo survey. Records of whether other species were sighted in the area and broad colony responses to UAS are also included. Data is a mix of numeric, date, and text. A second .csv file, "Survey_vertices.csv" details the input lat/lon data used to define the UAS survey track-lines at each of the three colonies. These were designed to meet our study design protocol of following the coastline at a 30m and a 60m buffer. There are also two sub-folders: "Boat Images" and "UAS Images" in this dataset. The Boat Images folder contains the raw images (.jpg) of the seabird colony plots collected from a Canon EOS 40D DSLR camera from the research vessel, separated in subfolders by date. The UAS Images folder contains the raw images (.jpg) of the seabird colony plots collected from the UAS platforms, separated in subfolders by FlightID, which includes date information. Further details on the flight parameters used while collecting the UAS images (e.g. speed, distance/altitude) can be cross-referenced in the FieldData_UASFLightLogs_2021.csv file. The file "Behavior_Merged_04Mar2022.csv" contains the calculated activity budget information for individual seabirds observed during each of the UAS flights. From videos recorded in the field, an observer conducted 10sec scan-sampling of a group of individual birds (n=16) across each of the 3 operation phases pre (10min before UAS flight), during UAS flight, and post (10min after UAS flight). The .csv file contains the calculated percent time individual birds spent in behavioral categories in each period of operation ((#scans in behavior / #total scans). It also contains information on the UAS flight parameters associated with the behavioral data. This data was used to assess variation in responses of individuals between control (Pre/Post) and UAS operational phases (During) to identify any negative impacts. The file "Abundance_Model1.csv" contains the counts of adult birds from UAS and vessel-based images (raw images in FieldData folder) used to assess species-specific differences in counts between the two forms of surveying. Images were processed in ArcMap (ESRI) and individual birds identified by two observers. The file "Abundance_Model2.csv" includes the counts of adult birds from UAS images and the difference between the UAS count and the count from the vessel images closest in time to the flight. This data was used to further investigate the impact of UAS parameters (speed, model, and distance) on count accuracy.