Aerial survey of sea ducks and whales in winter in eastern Canadian Arctic

In February of 2010, we conducted an exploratory aerial survey for sea ducks in the eastern Canadian Arctic along coastal waters of Ungava Bay, Hudson Strait, Frobisher Bay, and Labrador. Small numbers of eiders and long-tailed ducks were detected on the east and west coasts of Ungava Bay, Québec, Resolution Island, Nunavut and Labrador. A large concentration (~35 000 birds) of king and common eiders were detected in the waters around the Button Islands, Nunavut.  We also report on incidental observations of beluga and bowhead whales., Follows is a description and some notes take during the survey.
Aircraft:Provincial Airlines Twin Otter equipped with a passenger bubble window on both sides in the front passenger compartment and a large bubble window in the rear emergency exit.
Observers: Scott G. Gilliland Christine LepageJoseph Townley
Recording and navigation:We used PC Mapper AI and the USFWS RECORD/TRANSCRIBE software to geotag recordings. A Garmin GPSMAP276C GPS was loaded with waypoints identifying sites of interest and was provided to the pilots for navigation.
Survey was conducted at an altitude of 425 to 550m ASL and an airspeed of 250 kph to search for open water.  Areas of shallow open water were searched at an altitude of ~450m at air speeds of ~180 kph.
22 Feb 2010
Departed Goose Bay for Kuujjuaq, QC. In Kuujjuaq we refuelled and headed for Iqaluit, NU.  The planned route to follow the west coast of Ungava cross Hudson Strait via Salisbury Island and check some open water areas on the..., # Data from: Aerial survey of sea ducks and whales in winter in eastern Canadian Arctic

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.34tmpg4wh](10.5061/dryad.34tmpg4wh)

## Description of the data and file structure

Date of data collection: 2010-02-22 to 2010-02-24

Geographic location of data collection: Survey coverage for the east coast of Ungava Bay, parts of Frobisher Bay and the coast of Labrador, Canada.

### Files and variables

#### File: 2010_02_22_Hudson_Strait_TrackFile.csv

**Description:** CSV file containing the flight track of the flight track of the aircraft on February 22.  Data file contains time stamped coordinates collect at 1 s intervals.

##### Variables

* Feature ID: Unique Identifier
* Date: yyyy-mm-dd
* Time: UTC
* Latitude:
* Longitude:

#### File: 2010_02_23_Hudson_Strait_TrackFile.csv

**Description:** CSV file containing the flight track of the flight track of the aircraft on February 23.  Data file contains time stamped coordinates collect at 1 s intervals.

##### Varia...,