ASR- BIRD OBSERVATION PROGRAM AT GERMAN AIRPORTS

Bird counts, the basis of bird avoidance programs, provide excellent and detailed information about bird species, population sizes and their behaviour on and around airports. But, visual observation of birds is limited by astronomical and meteorological conditions, altitudes and distances and by their monitoring frequency. In order to additionally obtain continuous and area covering information on bird activity in the closer vicinity of airports, the German Board of Bird Strike Prevention (DAVVL e.V.) started a program of bird radar detection at major airports in co-operation with the German Air Traffic Control Organisation (DFS GmbH), using a new generation of Airport Surveillance Radar (ASR-2000). Within a distance of 10 nm around the local radar sensor, echoes of moving targets have been video recorded and computer stored in quarter-hourly intervals. Bird migration in regional scale and bird activity on a local scale could be detected, which gives interesting insights into the daily and seasonal activity pattern of birds around the airports. The objective of the program, method and results as well as examples of the recordings will be presented