Use of a weather radar for quantification of migrating birds

Bird quantification through the analysis of radar echoes must deal with several problematic issues. Among other aspects, the complex characteristics of the received signal due to the radar cross section of a bird in flight, limit methods based on a straight conversion of radar reflectivity into bird density. In this paper we propose a bird count algorithm envisaged for processing radar maps collected during the conical scan mode of operation, that bypasses this problem.