Capercaillie Emergency Plan 2025 - 2030 - Flipbook - Page 45
4. Current methodologies for brood counting with cameras range from higher
densities of cameras deployed (~20 cameras per 2km2) to increase the
likelihood of detections, to lower densities of cameras (~3 cameras per 1km2)
to increase the likelihood of independent sightings. The latter could be scaled
up to produce a chick to hen ratio at a landscape scale, e.g. for the
Cairngorms, as well as at a site scale.
5. Cold searching is necessary to identify dust baths or other features where
cameras could be deployed, but this requirement should reduce over time
once features become known, particularly those where birds are detected in
multiple years. It is estimated that 3 - 4km2 could be cold searched per day.
6. Excluding cold searching, the 5-year cost of using trail cameras for brood
counting is estimated at ~£4 per ha, covering equipment, deployment,
management, and image analysis.
7. Image volume varies, with some dust baths generating thousands of
capercaillie images and others only a few, but with a 50% detection rate for
both sexes.
8. If cameras are routinely deployed at the same sites within a 1km2 grid
system, over time this may allow for a wider landscape scale analysis,
including the extinction and colonisation of capercaillie at different locations.
Image of a female capercaillie by Mark Hamblin
45
Image of male and female
capercaillie by Mark Hamblin
