{ "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Dataset", "@id": "http://portal.medin.org.uk/portal/json-ld/1029463f26a62ea9bf8ad0b5cae54aa6.jsonld", "identifier": "1029463f26a62ea9bf8ad0b5cae54aa6", "url": "http://portal.medin.org.uk/portal/?details&tpc=1029463f26a62ea9bf8ad0b5cae54aa6", "name": "2013 Natural England (NE) Aerial Bird Surveys in the Outer Thames SPA", "description": "The Outer Thames Estuary Special Protection Area (SPA) is designated for wintering red throated divers which are listed in Annex I of the European Union (EU) Birds Directive \r\n (79/409/EEC). \r\n The population of red-throated divers is currently designated as 6,466 individuals; 38% of \r\n the Great British population. This figure was taken from visual aerial surveys undertaken \r\n between 1989 and 2007. The aim of this project was to provide current information regarding the abundance and \r\n distribution of a variety of wintering bird species, predominantly red-throated divers, \r\n present within the Outer Thames Estuary SPA.\r\n Two high resolution digital aerial surveys of the Outer Thames SPA were conducted \r\n during January and February 2013. Each survey was flown on a series of transects \r\n separated by 1.8 km, collecting abutting 3 cm resolution imagery. Average coverage was \r\n 15%.\r\n Population estimates of red-throated divers were calculated using two methods 1) a\r\n design-based method and 2) a model-based estimate using a Generalised Additive \r\n Modelling (GAM) framework. Model-based estimates had tighter confidence limits \r\n around the population estimates and precision was improved from the design-based \r\n estimate. \r\n From the model-based calculations, red-throated divers peaked in February 2013 at an \r\n estimated 13,605 (12,712 \u00e2?? 14,489) individuals. This peak is more than double the \r\n designated SPA total and represents 79% of the wintering Great British population. \r\n Higher numbers of red-throated divers were recorded in the southern part of the Outer \r\n Thames SPA during February 2013. In January 2013, higher numbers of individuals were \r\n recorded in the northern part of the SPA. This suggests a movement further into the \r\n estuary between the two surveys.\r\n wide range of other bird species were recorded, including greylag geese, shelduck, \r\n wigeon, scaup, common scoters, red-breasted mergansers, black-throated divers, great \r\n northern divers, great crested grebes, fulmars, gannets, cormorants, shags, oystercatchers, \r\n lapwings, redshanks, great skuas, kittiwakes, black-headed gulls, common gulls, lesser \r\n black-backed gulls, herring gulls, great black-backed gulls, guillemots and / or razorbills, \r\n little auks and puffins. After red-throated divers, common gulls were the next most \r\n abundant species (12,403; 2,203-30,110).\r\n 9. A number of marine mammal species were also recorded during the aerial surveys \r\n including dolphins and / or porpoises not identified to species level, harbour porpoises \r\n and a phocid (seal) species. Marine mammals were most abundant in January 2013 (584; \r\n 356-880) and were distributed widely throughout the SPA. \r\n 10. Although it is necessary to treat modelling results based on two months of survey data \r\n with great caution, red-throated diver distributions on the SPA appeared to be related to \r\n various environmental valuables including: bathymetry, chlorophyll a, wave base, tidal\r\n base, aspect of the sea bed, slope of the sea bed, average sea surface temperature, distance \r\n from dredging operations and distance to coastline. The distributions of red-throated \r\n divers may also have been affected by shipping activity and the presence of operational \r\n and in-construction wind farms", "includedInDataCatalog": { "@id": "http://portal.medin.org.uk/portal/json-ld/catalog.jsonld" }, "conditionsOfAccess": [ "otherRestrictions: OGL" ], "temporalCoverage": "2013-01-26/2013-02-12", "keywords": [ { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "identifier": "http://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/N01/current/NDGO0001/", "inDefinedTermSet": "http://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/N01/current/", "termCode": "NDGO0001", "name": "Marine Environmental Data and Information Network" }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "identifier": "http://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/P22/current/31/", "inDefinedTermSet": "http://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/P22/current/", "termCode": "31", "name": "Habitats and biotopes" }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "identifier": "http://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/P22/current/32/", "inDefinedTermSet": "http://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/P22/current/", "termCode": "32", "name": "Species distribution" }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "identifier": "http://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/P02/current/BRDA/", "inDefinedTermSet": "http://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/P02/current/", "termCode": "BRDA", "name": "Bird counts" }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "identifier": "http://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/P02/current/HBEX/", "inDefinedTermSet": "http://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/P02/current/", "termCode": "HBEX", "name": "Habitat extent" } ], "spatialCoverage": { "@type": "Place", "geo": { "@type": "GeoShape", "box": "51.3565 0.1212 52.1858 1.7362" }, "additionalProperty": [ { "@type": "PropertyValue", "propertyID": "http://www.opengis.net/def/crs/OGC/1.3/CRS84", "value": "urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG:4326" } ] }, "maintainer": [ { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Natural England", "description": "custodian", "email": "enquiries@naturalengland.org.uk", "telephone": "+44 (0)300 060 3900", "faxNumber": "+44 (0)300 060 2356", "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "streetAddress": "Foss House, Kings Pool, 1-2 Peasholme Green", "postalCode": "YO1 7PX", "addressLocality": "York" } } ], "producer": [ { "@type": "Organization", "description": "originator", "email": "manchester@apemltd.co.uk", "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress" } } ], "publisher": [ { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Natural England", "description": "pointOfContact", "email": "enquiries@naturalengland.org.uk", "telephone": "+44 (0)300 060 3900", "faxNumber": "+44 (0)300 060 2356", "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "streetAddress": "Foss House, Kings Pool, 1-2 Peasholme Green", "postalCode": "YO1 7PX", "addressLocality": "York" } } ], "provider": [ { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Natural England", "description": "distributor", "email": "enquiries@naturalengland.org.uk", "telephone": "+44 (0)300 060 3900", "faxNumber": "+44 (0)300 060 2356", "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "streetAddress": "Foss House, Kings Pool, 1-2 Peasholme Green", "postalCode": "YO1 7PX", "addressLocality": "York" } } ], "creator": [ { "@type": "Organization", "description": "originator", "email": "manchester@apemltd.co.uk", "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress" } } ], "sdPublisher": { "@type": "Organization", "url": "https://portal.medin.org.uk/portal/", "name": "Marine Environmental Data and Information Network (MEDIN)", "description": "The MEDIN portal contains information about 19493 marine datasets from over 600 UK organisations. Metadata are an enduring resource and contact details are publicly available for a long time. \r\n\t\tPlease contact us (enquiries@medin.org.uk) if you find your contact details on the MEDIN portal and do not consent to this. \r\n\t\tYou can now use our GitHub repository to report issues or access related documents. Metadata records are updated daily and were last updated 2026-04-19. Record deletion takes place weekly and the latest occurred 2026-04-12." } }