Open multi-year UAV surveys establish a reproducible seabird baseline for the Destruction Bay–North Foreland region, King George Island, Antarctica

Large sectors of the Antarctic Peninsula remain incompletely surveyed for breeding seabirds, while historical records often lack the spatial and methodological detail required to assess change. We combined broad uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) reconnaissance with targeted high-resolution mapping and repeated surveys to establish a spatially explicit contemporary baseline for surface-nesting seabirds in the Destruction Bay–North Foreland region of King George Island during the 2022/23–2025/26 breeding seasons. North Foreland was the principal breeding complex for Chinstrap Penguins and Southern Giant Petrels, with maxima of 53,310 and 560 active nests, respectively, while Cape Melville supported up to 493 Antarctic Shag nests. Independent annotations by three or four observers were highly reproducible: 45 of 49 survey–species combinations had coefficients of variation below 1% (median CV = 0.13%), and object-level matching showed strong spatial correspondence. Historical records corroborated the long-standing importance of the region but were too heterogeneous in survey timing, spatial extent and census units to support trend assessment. A published YOLOv6L Antarctic Shag detector retained high performance without retraining on later imagery and previously unseen colony settings (F1 = 94.7%). The released orthomosaics, observer-specific annotations and consensus products provide a transparent and reusable baseline for future monitoring, conservation assessment and automated image analysis.