Gentoo penguin nesting chronology at Bird Island, South Georgia, from 1988 to 2025 - VERSION 2.0
GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/02152
Abstract:
The chronology of Gentoo penguins on Bird Island, South Georgia has been monitored since 1988 (no data for 1989-90 or 1990-91). 30 nests are marked in the colony at Square Pond, and 40 in the Johnson Beach colony. Regular checks are made to record when eggs are laid and the peak laying date (when 75% of nests have eggs) is calculated.
This dataset is an updated version of Trathan, P., Waluda, C., & Ratcliffe, N. (2021). Gentoo penguin nesting chronology at Bird Island, South Georgia, from 1988 to 2019 - VERSION 1.0 (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/f9993ee9-085f-42cf-b008-5373526b2bcf. The update consists of five additional years of data. No changes have been made to the data included in the previous dataset.
This work was funded by Natural Environment Research Council (UK) core funding to the British Antarctic Survey.
Citation:
Trathan, P., Waluda, C., Ratcliffe, N., & Bennison, A. (2026). Gentoo penguin nesting chronology at Bird Island, South Georgia, from 1988 to 2025 - VERSION 2.0 (Version 2.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/5d497e91-29a6-4760-a9b0-904c93052671
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License
| Access: | None. |
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| Use: | This data is governed by the NERC data policy http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/sites/data/policy/ and supplied under Open Government Licence v.3 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ |
Basic Information
| Creation Date: | 2026-02-03 |
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| Dataset Progress: | Complete |
| Dataset Language: | English |
| ISO Topic Categories: |
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| Parameters: |
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Additional Information
| Reference: | ||
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| Lineage/Methodology: | Colony checks at Square Pond and Johnson Beach are started on or around 7 October. The colonies are checked regularly (every 3-4 days) until nest building begins. Once nest building has started, nests are marked. At Johnson: 40 concrete flagged nest markers are placed at random through the colony and the nest nearest to sea is taken as the study nest. At Square Pond: 30 nests are staked at random through the colony with flagged stakes. Both colonies are visited every 2 days once nests have been marked and records made of when eggs are laid in each study nest. The date when 75% of nests have at least one egg is then calculated. This dataset has been updated to add five additional years of data. The metadata has been updated accordingly. |
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Extent
| Temporal Coverage: | |
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| Start Date | 1988-10-08 |
| End Date | 2025-10-18 |
| Spatial Coverage: | |
| Latitude | |
| Southernmost | -54.0115 |
| Northernmost | -54.0115 |
| Longitude | |
| Westernmost | -38.0581 |
| Easternmost | -38.0581 |
| Altitude | |
| Min Altitude | N/A |
| Max Altitude | N/A |
| Depth | |
| Min Depth | N/A |
| Max Depth | N/A |
| Latitude | |
| Southernmost | -54.0176 |
| Northernmost | -54.0176 |
| Longitude | |
| Westernmost | -38.0779 |
| Easternmost | -38.0779 |
| Altitude | |
| Min Altitude | N/A |
| Max Altitude | N/A |
| Depth | |
| Min Depth | N/A |
| Max Depth | N/A |
| Location: | |
| Location | South Georgia Island |
| Detailed Location | Square Pond, Bird Island |
| Location | South Georgia Island |
| Detailed Location | Johnson Beach, Bird Island |
Instrumentation
| Data Collection: |
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