Population monitoring of Grey-headed and Black-browed Albatross on Bird Island, South Georgia, from 1976 onwards (https://data.bas.ac.uk/metadata.php?id=GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/01200), accessed by contacting UK Polar Data Centre at polardatacentre@bas.ac.uk, [date in here dd/mm/yyyy]

We would strongly encourage contacting Richard Philips (raphil@bas.ac.uk ) for more information regarding this dataset, including guidance on its reuse.

Methodology:

Whole island colony counts

The number of nests and chicks in each colony is counted twice annually. The nest count is carried out in November, the chick count in April.

The Grey Headed albatross data are the sum of the corrected counts in colonies A, A1, B, C, D, E, K, L, M1, M2 and M3. The count for 1996-1997 is too low as the numbers in colony K were not counted.

The Black Browed albatross data are the sums of the corrected counts in colonies H, I, J, N and O. There are no counts for 1991-1992 as only H and J were counted, or for 1994-1995, as the correction factor was unrealistic, so corrected counts could not be calculated.

The percentage chick survival is calculated from 2002-2003 onwards when a count of the number of chicks was started in all the above colonies except K.

Study colony counts

Colonies H, J and N1 (Black Browed Albatross) and colonies B and E (Grey Headed Albatross) are designated study colonies and as such are surveyed more frequently throughout the season. This allows calculations of fledging, hatching and breeding success to be made.

All data were collected under permit from the Government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

All sampling procedures used were regulated by the British Antarctic Survey Ethical Review Committee in collaboration with Cambridge University and the UK Home Office.