Aerial data from drone surveys of coastal habitats on the West Antarctic Peninsula during austral summer (January–March 2020 and February–March 2019)

Aerial data from drone surveys of coastal habitats on the West Antarctic Peninsula during January–March 2020 and February–March 2019. Regions include islands and exposed coastlines near Palmer Station (64°46′S 64°03′W) and two locations in the adjacent Joubin Islands (64°47′S 64°27′W). Data were collected using a Phantom 4 Pro with stock camera (2020) or a LemHex-44 custom hexacopter with a Sony A5100 24-megapixel CMOS mirrorless camera with a 50 mm focal length lens. Imagery was collected in color without spectral calibration at ground sample distances of ~1.5–3 cm/pixel. The repository contains all raw imagery collected from drone flights and photogrammetric products generated using Pix4D Mapper software: orthomosaics and digital surface models. Auxiliary data include example flight plans used to collect drone data at each site and ground control points used to ground truth, validate and process imagery with differentially corrected global positioning at three sites. Imagery was collected at 2–3 visits/site across 3 sites in 2019, and 1–13 visits/site across 14 sites in 2020, and sites spanned 0.016–0.286 km2 in area. Imagery features megafauna and associated phenological events including southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) and Antarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella) hauling out and molting, Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) breeding and molting, southern Giant Petrels (Macronectes giganteus) rearing chicks, and other less obvious species and processes. Imagery also features landcover and changes over time relating to nonspecific terrestrial vegetation, melting snow cover, inland hydrology, receding glacier termini and remnants, and concentrated biotic inputs of penguin colonies, seal wallows, and penguin molting grounds.