Avian Movement

Avian Movement Research, UNBC

This website contains protocol sets and video tutorials associated with tracking avian movement patterns that have been produced in Dr. Ken Otter's lab at the University of Northern BC.   Since 2006, we have been working on different ways to take visual, video or radar-tracked observations of bird flight paths, and translate these into tracks that can be assessed for directionality, speed, passage rates etc. for understanding the movement patterns of birds in relation to wind energy development and airports.   

These protocols are the documentation that we have for training purposes for new personnel entering the lab, and we are now offer these to others.  Please feel free to use these for ideas for dealing with your own issues, but we do ask that if you utilize these protocols you direct others to the site by using the recommended citations found at the bottom of each written protocol, and associated with each of the video tutorial series on using R-script generated in our lab to process the output data from radar tracking. These are also living documents, so they might be updated occasionally - if there are new postings we will indicate version numbers for tracking purposes. 

Tracking Aerial Targets with Mobile Radars - Video Tutorial Series

 IV. Horizontal I.  R-Script Processing for horizontal Input/Output and Demo (coming soon)
 IV. Vertical I.  R-Script Processing for Vertical Input/Output and Demo (coming soon)

These videos are also available in DVD format - if you would like a copy, please email Ken Otter to request a disk.

For those that would like to try out some of these protocols on 10 minute datasets of horizontal or vertical radar recordings, please send us a request