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Full-Text Articles in Environmental Studies
The Feasibility Of Using Drones To Count Songbirds, Andrew M. Wilson, Janine M. Barr, Megan E. Zagorski
The Feasibility Of Using Drones To Count Songbirds, Andrew M. Wilson, Janine M. Barr, Megan E. Zagorski
Environmental Studies Student Conference Presentations
Point and transect counts are the most common bird survey methods, but are subject to biases and accessibility issues. To eliminate some of these biases, we propose attaching a recorder to a consumer-grade quadcopter (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, or UAV) to estimate songbird populations from audio recordings. We conducted a blind experiment using broadcast recordings to estimate the detection radius of a compact recorder attached to a UAV, and found that the detection radius did not vary significantly when the UAV was flown at elevations of 20, 40 and 60m. We field tested our system by comparing UAV-based bird counts with …