Adelie penguin occupancy survey of the Balaena Islands, 2012

An occupancy survey on 26 January 2012 found 1 island (70166) along the coast between 111 degrees 00'E - 111 degrees 10'E had populations of breeding Adelie penguins. The survey was conducted from a fixed wing aircraft and oblique aerial photographs were taken of the occupied site. The aerial photographs were geo-referenced to the coastline shapefile from the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA, tile E158) and the boundaries of penguin colonies were digitised from the geo-referenced photos with not intentional buffer. Note the quality of the aerial photos was poor and so the resultant boundary mapping will not be very accurate. Also in the Balaena Islands there is a historic record from the 50s of penguins nesting on Thompson Islet (70166). When aerial photos were taken of this island penguins could not be detected.