A sad day with birding clients this week. After watching many young Griffons heading up and down the coastline of The Strait we watched powerless as one bird flew close to a wind turbine and was instantly killed by the rotating blades. Although these turbines look to some like lovely green energy producers the downside is that they constantly destroy birds. On a windy day the tip of a large windmill blade will travel at 265kmph. It looks slower than it really is and birds do not appreciate the danger. On reading this I bet that some humans will not have appreciated this speed too!
More news and photos soon...
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These turbines are in the direct line of flight for migrating birds and also well in sight of watching birders whereas our turbines are on inaccessible hills but not on migration routes. Nevertheless I'm curious to know if our large raptors are caught unawares by the blade speed and if there are post- build impact surveys.
* Stephen Daly is a British tour leader and excellent bird man and blogger. This was lifted from 'Never Mind the Finnsticks Read the Blog'.