Resightings of immature and deferring adult wandering albatrosses (Diomedea exulans) on Bird Island, South Georgia, from 2010 to 2022
GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/02162
Abstract:
This dataset records colony attendance by immature and deferring adult wandering albatrosses (Diomedea exulans) between 2010 and 2022, in a study colony at Bird Island, South Georgia. Individuals were ringed as fledglings and birds were sexed from plumage. The number of times a bird was sighted per season is presented, along with the dates of the first and last sighting that season.
Data were collected by Bird Island Zoological Field Assistants as part of the long-term monitoring of this colony, and were collated as part of a study of wandering albatross recruitment and the behaviour of immature and deferring adults attending the colony.
Funded as part of the Bird Island Long-term Monitoring Programme at BAS.
Citation:
Pearmain, E.J., Bennison, A., Wood, A.G., & Phillips, R.A. (2026). Resightings of immature and deferring adult wandering albatrosses (Diomedea exulans) on Bird Island, South Georgia, from 2010 to 2022 (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/34db1262-8b80-4094-9be0-7cc14ab7615a
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License
| Access: | This dataset is under embargo until the publication of the relevant manuscript. |
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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: | 2026-03-05 |
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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: | Pearmain, E. J., Carneiro, A. P. B., Bennison, A., Wood, A. G., Manica, A., & Phillips, R. A. (in prep). Colony attendance, not foraging ability, is key to recruitment in wandering albatross. Pardo, D., Forcada, J., Wood, A. G., Tuck, G. N., Ireland, L., Pradel, R., Croxall, J. P., & Phillips, R. A. (2017). Additive effects of climate and fisheries drive ongoing declines in multiple albatross species. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(50), E10829?E10837. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1618819114 |
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| Quality: | Where 'season_ringed' is 'NA' for immature birds, this is because they were first ringed as adults rather than as chicks, and so their age is unknown. Where 'sex' is 'NA', this is because they are immature birds that have not yet bred and have not been sexed from field observations. |
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| Lineage/Methodology: | Fieldwork took place at a long-term study colony of wandering albatross on Bird Island, South Georgia (54°00'S; 38°03'W). All chicks have been ringed here each year since 1972 and nests have been monitored annually since 1980 (for details see Pardo et al. 2017). The wandering albatross breeding cycle lasts around 1 year: eggs are laid in December, hatch in March, and chicks fledge in November-December. Attendance data are based on observations of the presence (ring sequences) of immature and deferring adults at the colony. Immature birds are defined as non-breeding birds that have not bred previously, and deferring (sabbatical) adults are defined as non-breeding birds with previous breeding experience. Birds were sexed where possible from plumage. Observations were made weekly during December to March, and opportunistically outside those months. Data presented here are from observations made for immature birds between 2010 and 2022, and for deferring birds between 2019 and 2022. This date range was chosen so the data could be compared against GPS-tracked birds from a related study that were from the same age cohort (ringed 2007-2014), and tracked in the 2020/21 and 2021/22 seasons. All data were collected under permit from the Government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, and all sampling procedures used were regulated by the British Antarctic Survey Animal Welfare and Ethical Review Body. |
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Extent
| Temporal Coverage: | |
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| Start Date | 2010-03-11 |
| End Date | 2022-03-30 |
| Start Date | 2019-12-05 |
| End Date | 2022-04-02 |
| Spatial Coverage: | |
| Latitude | |
| Southernmost | -54 |
| Northernmost | -54 |
| Longitude | |
| Westernmost | -38.05 |
| Easternmost | -38.05 |
| 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 | Bird Island |
Storage
| Distribution: | |
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| Distribution Media | Online Internet (HTTP) |
| Distribution Size | 60KB |
| Distribution Format | ASCII |
| Fees | N/A |
| Data Storage: | This dataset consists of 1 x .csv file: bi_waa_resightings_2010-2022.csv [61KB] These contain the following columns: status - whether the individual was immature or a deferring adult bto_ring - number on metal ring on bird leg, read to identify the bird season_ringed - season in which bird was ringed (season of fledging). Immature birds only sex - sex as determined from plumage season_resighted - season in which resightings observations were made n_days_resighted - number of individual days on which the bird was resighted date_first_resighted - the earliest date on which the bird was sighted in that season, in yyyy-mm-dd format date_last_resighted - the latest date on which the bird was sighted in that season, in yyyy-mm-dd format Breeding seasons ("season") are referred to by the year in which the chick usually fledges, e.g. 2020 indicates the 2019/20 season. |