Abstract
This report constitutes the third seasonal (April to June 2023) report outlining results from digital aerial surveys conducted in May 2023 within the Central North Sea under the POSEIDON project and commissioned by Natural England. Surveys were undertaken using APEM’s high-resolution camera system to capture digital still imagery of birds and marine megafauna within the Survey Area.
The survey was successfully carried out across two days in May 2023, the final 2 nm of line 4 were aborted due to safety concerns over low clouds. A total of 6,995 observations were recorded during the survey in May 2023, of which 6,105 were observations of birds and 890 observations of marine megafauna. APEM will continue to monitor the site for these species and others during the remaining seasonal surveys.