The research
Technology & Innovation
Miniature trackers, drones and machine learning are changing what we can learn about seabirds, and how quickly.
Tracking
Geolocators record light levels to estimate a bird's location over a whole year. GPS loggers give precise tracks of feeding trips. Satellite tags send data in near real time. Depth recorders reveal how deep diving birds go.
Drones and imaging
Drones can count large colonies quickly and with less disturbance than people on foot, when flown carefully. High-resolution satellite images have been used to find and count penguin colonies from space, sometimes by the stains their guano leaves on the ice.
Listening in
Acoustic recorders left at colonies capture the calls of nocturnal, burrow-nesting species that are hard to count by eye. They can confirm whether a species is present on an island.
Machine learning
Software can now count birds in photographs and identify calls in hours of recordings. That turns months of manual work into days and makes large-scale monitoring practical.
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