Photodocumentation in Seabird Surveys: How to Do Them Right?

Seabirds being at the top of trophic chains are an excellent indicator that can provide us with information about the condition of these chains. By monitoring the numbers and breeding success of seabirds in colonies, we obtain data on trends in bird populations and can judge on the condition of marine ecosystems as a whole, albeit direct observations of which are extremely laborious and sometimes impossible at all. The only thing we need is to regularly count birds and monitor them in colonies. However, complete censuses of birds in colonies are costly in terms of both material resources and the involvement of a large number of specialists. This task can be performed by using photographic equipment in counts throughout the whole colony or at relatively small representative monitoring plots. During route surveys at sea from various kinds of watercraft, photographing the encountered seabirds, and marine mammals, is necessary, since among seabirds, especially in the Southern Ocean, where many species look similar, the identification is only possible based on photographs. This paper mainly instructs how to correctly set up photographic equipment, as well as which kind of settings in cameras affect the image quality and what should be done to obtain photographic material suitable for further biological processing.