Adelie penguin occupancy survey of the Windmill Island group, 2012 - 2013

The boundaries of breeding colonies at 11 of the 14 islands were subsequently mapped for abundance surveys. Seven islands were mapped on the ground with GPS: Whitney Point, Blakeney Point, Shirley Island, Odbert Island, Berkley Island, Cameron Island and O'Connor Island between 10 December 2012 to 9 January 2013 ).

The buffer distance was reduced to 1-2 m in the shapefiles created from the ground maps. Ground mapping involved circumnavigating the perimeter of sub-colonies on foot while carrying a Garmin GPS (Legend Cx or Vista C) to log the track taken. The person walking around the sub-colonies maintained a buffer distance of 2-3 m between themselves and the penguins at the sub-colony boundary to minimise disturbance.