This flyover is based on the research data cited below. The tool is built using Claude Opus 4.8, and partially with Claude Fable 5, grounded with research data. The accuracy of the data presented by the AI is not independently verified.
Primary study. Barzova et al. (2018), “Breeding birds in the Narta Lagoon (SW Albania) in 2016”, Acrocephalus 39(176–177): 7–25. Fieldwork was two visits in April & May 2016 by teams of the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BirdLife Bulgaria) and PPNEA (Albania).
Headline figures (verified against the full text). 136 species observed; ~6,400 breeding pairs of 85 species; 3,461 non-breeding individuals of 80 species. Among the three sites surveyed, Narta held 69.36% of all breeding waders and 80.52% of other breeding shorebirds.
Habitat typing (the paper's own classification) — used here to decide which water body each species sits on:
• Coastal & halophytic communities (salinas / salt pans): Little Tern, Kentish Plover, Common Tern.
• Water-fringe vegetation in the wetland (open lagoon): Mallard & other wildfowl, Coot, Little Grebe.
Most numerous breeding waders: Pied Avocet, Kentish Plover and Black-winged Stilt.
About placement. The paper's Figure 1 shows survey points and the salinas border on a Google Maps base, but publishes no per-flock coordinates. So bird positions here are not exact survey points: counts & species are from the study, while each bird is placed within the real water body it uses (lagoon vs Skrofotina salt pans, geometry from OpenStreetMap).
Mapping & terrain data
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Base imagery & maps: Mapbox GL JS v3.3.0, satellite-streets style (satellite imagery © Maxar), with a Topo toggle.
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Terrain / elevation: Mapbox Terrain DEM (mapbox-terrain-dem-v1) driving the 3D relief, plus globe projection and a sky/atmosphere layer.
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Habitat geometry: OpenStreetMap via the Overpass API — natural=water, natural=wetland and landuse=salt_pond polygons within 40.475–40.560°N, 19.370–19.495°E. Largest water bodies = the lagoon; salt ponds = the Skrofotina salt pans. Approximate fallback outlines are used if Overpass is unreachable.
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Species photos: fetched live per species from the Wikipedia REST summary API.
Methodology
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Counts are real; positions are not exact. Counts & species come from the studies above; each flock is assigned to the real water body it uses (lagoon vs salt pans), following the paper's own habitat typing.
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Habitat-constrained placement. OSM polygons are fetched on load and any flock not already inside its correct habitat is relocated to a deterministic interior point (point-in-polygon sampling).
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Individual birds. Every bird is plotted individually and scattered around its flock with a Rayleigh radial distribution (dense core, soft edges), rejection-sampled to stay in the water. A seeded PRNG keeps positions stable across re-renders.
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Icons. Non-waders use emoji markers; the five wader species use hand-drawn, species-accurate silhouettes. Popups mirror the exact map icon.
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Seasons. Toggle between Breeding and Winter count sets.
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Flyover. A continuous frame-by-frame camera follows a smooth closed spline loop over the lagoon — single zoom-in over the first wildlife, held close through the loop, extending north to 40.58254°N 19.45922°E, then a single zoom-out drifting toward Sazan.