High-Resolution Spatial Distribution of Bird Movements Estimated from a Weather Radar Network

Weather radars provide detailed information on aerial movements of organisms. However, interpreting fine-scale radar imagery remains challenging because of changes in aerial sampling altitude with distance from the radar. Fine-scale radar imagery has primarily been used to assess mass exodus at sunset to study stopover habitat associations. Here, we present a method that enables a more intuitive integration of information across elevation scans projected in a two-dimensional spatial image of fine-scale radar reflectivity. We applied this method on nights of intense bird migration to demonstrate how the spatial distribution of migrants can be explored at finer spatial scales and across multiple radars during the higher flying en-route phase of migration. The resulting reflectivity maps enable explorative analysis of factors influencing their regional and fine-scale distribution. We illustrate the method’s application by generating time-series of composites of up to 20 radars, achieving a nearly complete spatial coverage of a large part of Northwest Europe. These visualizations are highly useful in interpreting regional-scale migration patterns and provide detailed information on bird movements in the landscape and aerial environment. View Full-Text

Keywords: radar aeroecology; avian migration; weather radar; vertical profiles of birds; polar volume

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Supplementary Materials

Supplementary File 1:
RAR-Document (RAR, 26425 KiB)
Externally hosted supplementary file 1
Link: http://10.21942/uva.11365169.v2
Description: Image sequence of bird migration Netherlands and Belgium (2016-10-3)
Externally hosted supplementary file 2
Doi: 10.21942/uva.11365295.v2
Description: Image sequence of bird migration Netherlands, Germany and Belgium (2017-10-18)

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MDPI and ACS Style

Kranstauber, B.; Bouten, W.; Leijnse, H.; Wijers, B.-C.; Verlinden, L.; Shamoun-Baranes, J.; Dokter, A.M. High-Resolution Spatial Distribution of Bird Movements Estimated from a Weather Radar Network. Remote Sens. 2020, 12, 635. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12040635

AMA Style

Kranstauber B, Bouten W, Leijnse H, Wijers B-C, Verlinden L, Shamoun-Baranes J, Dokter AM. High-Resolution Spatial Distribution of Bird Movements Estimated from a Weather Radar Network. Remote Sensing. 2020; 12(4):635. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12040635

Chicago/Turabian Style

Kranstauber, Bart, Willem Bouten, Hidde Leijnse, Berend-Christiaan Wijers, Liesbeth Verlinden, Judy Shamoun-Baranes, and Adriaan M. Dokter. 2020. "High-Resolution Spatial Distribution of Bird Movements Estimated from a Weather Radar Network" Remote Sensing 12, no. 4: 635. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12040635

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High-Resolution Spatial Distribution of Bird Movements Estimated from a Weather Radar Network

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