Monitoring Sandwitch sterns on Griend

For the last two months one of our custom camera solutions monitored the sandwich tern colony on Griend. The camera system consisted of a high-resolution camera, a server with 16 terabytes of storage where we could store the video’s from the camera, and, since there is no internet available on the island, a 4G broadcast station that streamed the video to a web portal.

The goal of the monitoring was to provide researchers with insight into breeding behavior, breeding success and the food supplied to the chicks. By using a camera instead of observers the disturbance within the colony is minimal, and the videos can be viewed and analyzed multiple times.

Using a camera allows researchers to analyze the footage, which allows them to look at what kind of fish are supplied to the chicks, how big these fishes are, and how much fish the chicks get (and how much fish gets stolen by black headed gulls). Through these observations researchers gain a better understanding of which factors determine the breeding success of sandwich terns on Griend.

See for more information the dutch article here, or read the Griend blog by Laura Govers.