Wind farms cause decline in bird population – RSPB
Wind farms can reduce bird numbers by up to half, according to a new study by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, that raises questions about the charity’s support of the new technology.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6231580/Wind-farms-cause-decline-in-bird-population—RSPB.html

Newest Texas Wind Farm Cause for Community Celebration, Brings Energy Industry Leaders to Kenedy County on the Gulf Coast
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS126743+17-Apr-2009+BW20090417

I will be very interested in seeing the results of the Texas post-construction study. (Actually, I’d be interested to see the pre-construction results, following the usual scientific peer-review standards . . . ).
-Mike

- Interesting research from studies at communication towers is coming out. One that’s applicable looked at tower heights, presence of guy wires, siting of tower, but also lighting regimes – something that can be changed at existing towers. Assuming I’m remembering this correctly, and with everything else being equal, kills were highest at towers with sold, white lights. Blinking red lights saw significantly fewer tower kills. Blinking white and solid red were somewhere in the middle.

I assume findings like these can be implemented in new designs (though I don’t know what FAA regulations may be, and in the case of towers FCC as well).

And a third bonus “quick” point (actually a wonderment): I’m surprised Baffin Bay is a large enough body of water to deter raptors from crossing it. I always assumed that rule of thumb referred to really large bodies (the Caribbean, the Great Lakes). We know hawks get funneled at sites like Cape May and Cape Charles (Delmarva Penninsula), I assume those birds do cross the mouths of the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays and don’t perish or overwinter at these sites. Did the researchers, or have birders in general, noticed hawks changing course so as not to cross Baffin Bay? Perhaps the traditional, more westerly route is preferred but easily changed due to weather conditions. I’m thinking of the Braddock Bay Hawkwatch in Rochester, NY, where there are two lookouts, one near the lakeshore, one father inland. Which one is used depends on the winds because the hawks change their behavior accordingly.

Interesting discussion!
-Mike

David, I’m glad you pointed that out — I went back to the original document and see that it was MY interpretive error, not the scientists’. So I eat my words and offer the exact verbiage instead:

Is there a concern about Fall hawk migration in the wind resource area?

• Unlikely. Hawks avoid large bodies of water. NO Broad-winged Hawks were seen in the Wind Resource Area in 2004.

Researchers said that most hawks passed west of the study area and tend to avoid the open prairie.

The issue Noflickster brought up about turbines with still blades being just as dangerous as cell phone towers is a good one. I feel some more research coming on…what are the best practices in this field?

“Although the region is significant for Broad-winged Hawk migration in fall, no significant impacts to these hawks are expected because hawks tend to migrate over open water, not land.”

That’s not correct.

Soaring birds (raptors, vultures, storks, etc.) use thermal updrafts for lift during migration, which requires landmass. While some individuals will make large water crossings, most do not. The more than half-a-million Broad-winged hawks and Swainson’s Hawks that migrate right over Corpus Christie (which is just north of the wind farm) each year are circum-Gulf migrants, meaning they follow the coastline from TX into Mexico, and continue south into Central and South America.

I’m not saying that the wind farm would have direct impact, I’m just saying that whoever wrote the conclusions in the report is at best ill informed about hawk ecology, and given the scope of raptor migration through that region, should reconsider whether the project poses a threat to them.

Cheers

David

- I am all for alternative energy development, and I’m encouraged to see the more cautious approach taken (illustrated by this study) that appears to be underway in siting locations and mitigating collisions. As I mentioned, siting the locations properly is paramount to that end. Of course there will be risk, and I’m glad to see efforts underway to minimize it.

- To that end I am excited by the collaboration among scientists, academics, industry and government to address conservation issues around wind farms, and the use of several different tools to achieve them – radar, acoustic technology, etc.

- The study you focused on is admirable in its breadth and depth to assess and minimize potential environmental impacts, something lacking in many earlier studies (e.g., single-season data collection). My only issue is that the presentation seemed a bit light in presenting results and the data that support them. Simply put, I would like to see more numbers that support the conclusions, especially in a heavily traveled migration corridor like the TX coast.

- And as long as you bring up Citizen Science, preach it, sister! It’s not the final say, but it can be an essential first step to uncovering trends and patterns, focusing our questions, and collecting an amount of data no single research group could gather on their own.

- That is all.
-Mike

To your point about birds migrating over the farm in the dark, regardless of the habitat below. I can’t speak for data I haven’t seen, but those involved say the tens of thousands of data points they collected show surprisingly low risk in this area. Hopefully we’ll see more conclusions from this site (and from the adjoining Kenedy Foundation Ranch site–dig, dig, dig).

There seems to be some promising technology and practices here. Obviously, wind power does not pose a NO AVIAN RISK situation. But nothing is risk-free in the energy business. It’s all a matter of degrees.

Bird watchers are an important lobby group on this issue (there’s 48 million of us, right?). We need to be awakened to both the possibilities and the risks associated with wind farms. We need to make ourselves an informed majority. And we need to put pressure on the industry to conduct pre-construction studies.

This also underscores the importance of ongoing citizen monitoring of birds. We never know when the birding data we collect can be used to help demonstrate the ornithological significance of an area, which may be needed to placed added pressure for pre-construction studies.

Get, thee, to eBird…(ebird.org)

I also wonder: why is the US so far behind Europe in these pre-construction studies? Wait, I don’t want to hear the answer…

To Laura’s comments/questions:

- We can stop the turbines within 1-2 minutes if required (emergency shutdown), but an orderly shutdown is better for wear and tear on the turbines and takes 3-5 minutes. The detection range settings can be set in the system and were designed to allow ample time for an orderly shutdown based on the data developed over nearly three years of pre-construction radar data available for these sites (the only year long + 24-7 radar survey done in north America to date to my knowledge).

- Since Iberdrola and B&B announced their commitment to radar-based curtailment there has been a lot of interest from wind farms worldwide. The USFWS has also been briefed at every step in the development of the methodology and is very favorable to the risk mitigation strategy.

- The technology can be added to any wind farm even after construction. we do have to develop data on how the birds are moving in the area in order to define the risk “threshold” levels and other factors that define when curtailment occurs. Ideally we need a full year or 26 months of 24-7 data to fully understand the bird movements and possible responses.

- The stakeholders (birders, et al) were very important in the way these projects were developed as I understand it. Both developers were sensitive to the value of the resource area to birders and committed to extensive studies prior to construction that went so far as to influence where turbines were actually placed. Babcock & Brown purchased the radar in 2006 and collected over two years of pre-construction radar data and committed early on to installing the radar as a risk management system coupled to the wind farm control system. The model both developers used here is more like what we see in our european projects … extensive, detailed, year-round studies in advance.

To Mike’s:

- You are correct in that the stopped turbine does still present an obstacle however the turbines will be stopped to minimize the frontal surface and present the lowest surface area.

- We do use acoustic sensors also in conjunction with our radar and have worked with Cornell, Boston U and other to integrate a variety of sensors. Again, radar is another tool, but alone is not the panacea.

- As far as the other issues you raise or availability of data/reports, we provided on the radar portion of the work so I cannot comment on these.