Marine Bird surveys Collecting data to identify important areas for birds in the marine environment Marine SPA Team, JNCC

The Birds Directive (Directive 2009/147/EC) - breeding, feeding, wintering and migrating birds - rare and vulnerable species (Annex 1) and migratory birds - part of Natura 2000 network

UK SPA selection guidelines 1.1 (Annex 1 species): regularly >1% of GB pop 1.2 (migratory species): regularly >1% biogeographic pop 1.3 (assemblages): regularly >20,000 individuals 1.4 (particular ecological importance: population size and density, range, breeding success, history of occupancy, multi-species areas, naturalness, sever weather refuges. Stage 1 Stage 2 Most suitable areas (population size and density, range, breeding success, history of occupancy, multi- species areas, naturalness, sever weather refuges)

Species of interest inshore waterbirds and seabirds Ben Dean Jacpb Sigurasson Ben Dean Anette Cutts Ben Dean Christopher Plummer

Strands of work 1) marine extensions to existing seabird colony SPAs Neil Golding Kerstin Kober Ilka Win Ben Dean  2) inshore aggregations of wintering waterbirds 3) Offshore and inshore aggregations of seabirds 4) other types of SPA

Wintering waterbirds Christopher Plummer

greater scaup great northern diver common eider little grebe long-tailed duck great crested grebe common scoter red-necked grebe velvet scoter Slavonian grebe common goldeneye black-necked grebe red-breasted merganser little gull Goosander European shag red-throated diver Great cormorant black-throated diver Areas of Search strategic approach to identifying most suitable sites Existing data sources included: WeBS, marine IBA, existing survey data, JNCC atlas. ‘Areas of Search’ identified Renton Charman

Survey programme Line transects from aircraft Standardised survey methods, with distance estimation Aerial surveys KIF Andy Webb

Land-based counts JNCC targeted counts Other targeted counts e.g. RSPB seaduck counts Moray Firth. Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) 9 Andy Webb

Survey coverage

11 Population estimates Regularity Survey coverage Mean of Peak

Distribution: raw observations → density surfaces 12 Kernel density estimation (KDE) Mark Lewis

Maximum curvature method (O'Brien et al. (2012) Biological Conservation 156: 15-21) Delineating important areas 13

Strands of work 1) marine extensions to existing seabird colony SPAs  2) inshore aggregations of wintering waterbirds 3) Offshore and inshore aggregations of seabirds 4) other types of SPA Areas of Search, Mean of Peak, KDE, Max Curvature

Seabirds (all seasons) B en Dean

large target area Area of Search and data scarce data ESAS data northern fulmar Cory's shearwater great shearwater sooty shearwater Manx shearwater European storm-petrel Leach's Storm-petrel northern gannet great cormorant European shag pomarine skua Arctic skua long-tailed skua great skua black-legged kittiwake black-headed gull little gull great black-backed gull Mediterranean gull common gull lesser black-backed gull herring gull Iceland gull glaucous gull Sandwich tern common tern Arctic tern common guillemot Razorbill little auk Atlantic puffin

Methods from data to hotspots (2) Hotspot analysis (top 1% Getis-Ord Gi*), (3) SPA guidelines (Stage 1) (1) Poisson kriging

Seabird hotspots 42 hotspots identified under Stage 1

Strands of work 1) marine extensions to existing seabird colony SPAs  2) inshore aggregations of wintering waterbirds 3) Offshore and inshore aggregations of seabirds 4) other types of SPA Areas of Search, Mean of Peak, KDE, Max Curvature ESAS data, Poissong kriging, Getis-Ord Breeding large terns, breeding red-throated diver, European shag...