EDIA – Global Bird Monitoring Program of the Alqueva Dam (EFMA) Secondary Irrigation Network, block D (irrigation blocks of Alvarrão, Brinches, Brinches-Enxoé, Caliços-Machado, Caliços-Moura, Orada-Amoreira, Pias and Serpa) - Large steppe species: Great Bustard (Otis tarda) [2021-2022]

Study Extent

The data were collected in part of the area covered by the Secondary Irrigation Network of the Alqueva Dam project block D (irrigation blocks of Alvarrão, Brinches, Brinches-Enxoé, Caliços-Machado, Caliços-Moura, Orada-Amoreira, Pias and Serpa) covering in total 45084 ha, in the municipalities of Moura, Beja and Serpa, and in a nearby control area, covering 9205 ha in the municipality of Castro Verde (all in the district of Beja).

Sampling

Car transects were carried out along the entire network of available trails (approximately 550 km) to cover the entire area, in “impact” (irrigation blocks – ALV: Alvarrão, BRE: Brinches-Enchoé, BRI: Brinches, CMA: Caliços-Machado, CMO: Caliços-Moura, ORA: Orada-Amoreiras, PIAS: Pias and SER: Serpa) and “control” (“CONTxx”) zones. They were driven at low speeds (less than 20 km/h) during the cooler periods of the day (early morning and late afternoon). frequent stopping points were made in places with good visibility to locate the birds. All detections of the species were noted in a field form specifically made for this purpose. These forms included (a) the location (with geographic coordinates), time, number of individuals, sex, age (classifying each animal as Immature, Juvenile, Sub-adult or Adult), number of offspring per female, behavior and habitat of occurrence. Additionally, the following metadata were included: (a) day of the visit, start and end time of the transect, observer identification, weather conditions in qualitative scales (cloud cover, temperature wind and rainfall. The geographic coordinates of the starting point of each transect is given in columns “decimalLatitude”/decimalLongitude” , and the start/end points of the transect in the column “footprintWKT” of the DarwinCore files. Regarding the habitat of occurrence, a pre-established list of habitat classes was used, which based on the COS 2007 (Land Use and Occupation Chart for Mainland Portugal for 2007), produced by the Portuguese Geographical Institute.

Quality Control

All identifications were performed by qualified technicians

Method steps

1. To be completed

The taxonomic coverage of this dataset spans 1 phylum, 1 class, 1 orders, 1 families, 1 genus and 1 species.

1. Chordata
   rank: phylum
2. Aves
   rank: class
3. Otidiformes
   rank: order
4. Animalia
   rank: kingdom
5. Otididae
   rank: family

The data were collected in the area covered by the Secondary Irrigation Network of the Alqueva Dam project, block D (irrigation blocks of Alvarrão, Brinches, Brinches-Enxoé, Caliços-Machado, Caliços-Moura, Orada-Amoreira, Pias and Serpa) covering in total 45084 ha, in the municipalities of Moura, Beja and Serpa, and in a nearby control area, covering 9205 ha in the municipalities of Castro Verde and Beja (all in the district of Beja).