Over 5 million GPS fixes in the UvA-BiTS database

Thursday, June 21st, 2012

After a little over 4 years in operation, the UvA-BiTS project has achieved an important milestone:

Over 5 million valid GPS fixes recorded in the database!

Between May 2008 and June 2012, UvA-BiTS data logger technology was applied to 24 different projects, with studies being conducted on 19 bird species and 360 individual birds.

The more than 5 million GPS fixes currently in the database are spread over 67 countries within Europe, Africa and Asia (see image below).

In addition, over 69 million valid individual accelerometer measurements have been recorded in the database since 2009, and temperature, pressure and altitude measurements were also collected in conjunction with many GPS fixes.

Even though the Lesser Black-backed Gull is the species leader with the greatest number of tagged birds and total GPS fixes, the individual bird record holder is a Montagu’s Harrier with over 120,000 fixes recorded since the bird was first tagged in May 2011. This individual is monitored on a daily basis, with increased sampling frequency during the breeding season, and has migrated from Europe to Africa twice.