Abstract
Two studies preceded the current analysis. An international workshop was held in Den Helder in April 2017, bringing together seabird researchers and guillemot displacement data for offshore wind farms in Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and the UK. All studies shared a common general design, that used seabird (all species, not just guillemots) counts along pre-designed transect lines through an offshore wind farm. Both ship-based and aerial survey data were brought to the workshop and the various data sets were analysed using a common approach, that was being developed during the workshop (led by Dr Alain Zuur, of Highland Statistics). Given that data sets still needed screening and that the latest statistical methods for analysing such data were to be used, and that the data structure was very difficult to work with, a common end result could not be reached at the workshop. Therefore, Dr Alain Zuur re-analysed the available data sets again, one by one, after the workshop and reported on the results of his analysis in a technical report (Zuur 2018). The report written by Zuur (2018) focuses on the analysis of the available data. This report attempts to provide advice on how best to proceed with further field studies, and to explain, in more layman’s terms, how good or imperfect the available data were and how the statistical challenge of working with these data was approached.