Painting wind turbine blades black to decrease bird hits

[Bobbi]

Hi all-sent to me by a friend-interesting-what do some of you think?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/painting-wind-turbines-black-could-132537552.html

Bobbi Reichwein

Davidsonville, MD

[Kurt Schwarz]

That study was very small and not large enough. It points to a possible mitigation measure but needs to be expanded to establish validity. And it is no panacea or excuse for poor sighting. Also, as someone has pointed out, does nothing for bats. And the study ignores the fact that FAA has a say. A similar study in the Netherlands showed purple turbines also reduced kills.  But it will not pass muster in the US due to flight issues.

Again, the best solution is to not put turbines where they will kill birds and bats.

Poor siting of turbines has engaged MOS for the last 15 or more years.

Kurt Schwarz

Conservation Chair

Maryland Ornithological Society 

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Kurt Schwarz
Ellicott City, Howard County
kurtschwarz4 at gmail dot com

[Paul O'Brien]

Is it just me?  I thought birds flew into turbine blades during nocturnal migration because they could NOT see them.  Painting them black would only make it worse.  Somebody fill me in on what I have missed.

Paul O'Brien

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[Kurt Schwarz]

Good point. Raptors, however, are diurnal migrants, and the most egregious wind farm at Altamont in California kills lots of hawks and eagles. 

[Scott Young]

Maybe paint the blades and towers black and put lights over them for at night?

Scott Young

Gaithersburg

[Steve Long]

At least it is a start to ask how birds perceive (or misperceive or don't perceive) wind turbine blades. 

Having black blades probably helps noticing them against a light sky, because the birds are probably biologically geared to notice motions that might be attacks from flying predators, at least during the day.

But, windmill blades also move at night and during dense fogs over land and the ocean waters, when and where there are sometimes mass migrations.  Not siting windmills in such locations may be difficult, because first, the migrations are following long paths, and second, those paths can shift laterally by large amounts due to winds and other factors.  The precise timing of migrations is also not fully predictable.  And, the migrating birds are also probably "playing the winds" to facilitate their travels.

So, it may be most practical to require wind farms in the vicinity of known migration paths to stop their blades for the whole periods when migrations are known to occur.  A requirement like that would naturally have the tendency to favor siting wind farms well away from important migration routes.

Steve Long

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[Scott Young]

Let me amend my thought to say we know that stationary lights can attract birds, but what do we know about lights in motion that would be on the blades? I guess we shouldn't put them on the towers themselves...

[Sandra Farkas]

Solution:

Just turn them off during migration!

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 4, 2020, at 10:45 AM, Scott Young <wsy...@gmail.com> wrote:



Let me amend my thought to say we know that stationary lights can attract birds, but what do we know about lights in motion that would be on the blades? I guess we shouldn't put them on the towers themselves...

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