Here, the count data underlying the paper "Beyond BACI: offsetting carcass numbers with flight intensity to improve risk assessments of bird collisions with power lines" (to be published in "Ecology and Evolution", Mercker&Jödicke, 2021) are given. In particular, we provide flight intensity data for Starling, Geese Gulls, and Doves (i.e., data from those analyzed bird species(complexes) where statistical analyses indicate a violation of the BACI assumption of synchronicity (p < 0.1)), as well as Geese flight and carcass data (the latter structurally underlying the simulation study presented in our work). We kindly thank the TenneT TSO GmbH for providing carcass and bird flight data.

Study area

The analyses presented in this work strongly rely on the flight and carcass data collected in the wire-marking effectiveness study as presented in Jödicke et al (2018) (c.f., below). The corresponding study area is located near the Elbe river close to Hamburg, Germany.

Bird flight data

Bird flight movements were recorded weekly within one 300 m wide corridor on both sides of three different counting points (two within the control site and one within the impact site) with a usual counting duration of 4 hours per count and counting point. All detected birds crossing the lines below, flying through the lines, or crossing them above, were recorded. In each season (before vs. after), 70 counts were carried out. A total of 128 species including > 450,000 individuals were observed within 1,644 observation hours. More details are given in

K. Jödicke, H. Lemke, M. Mercker (2018): "Wirksamkeit von Vogelschutzmarkierungen an Erdseilen von Höchstspannungsfreileitungen". Naturschutz und Lanschaftsplanung 50 (8), p 286-294.

Carcass data

Collision victims were recorded by searching six defined parallel transects of 20 m width (i.e., a total width of 120 m has been searched) below and next to the power line. The total length of the search distance was 4.1 km, resulting in a total transect length of 24.6 km per carcass search. Searches were carried out every 2 days during the main migration and resting periods (February 15 to April 30 and August 15 to October 31), and every 5 days at other times. A total of 222 carcass searches were carried out over two complete seasons (from February 2014 to April 2016). A total of 637 collision victims were found. More details are given in

K. Jödicke, H. Lemke, M. Mercker (2018): "Wirksamkeit von Vogelschutzmarkierungen an Erdseilen von Höchstspannungsfreileitungen". Naturschutz und Lanschaftsplanung 50 (8), p 286-294.

All explanantions with respect to variable names and meanings are given in the corresponding paper "Beyond BACI: offsetting carcass numbers with flight intensity to improve risk assessments of bird collisions with power lines" (to be published in "Ecology and Evolution").