Terry, Correct birds are killed by all sorts of things but the damage done by wind turbines is greatly underestimated for a whole host of reasons :-
See the following infrared video of typical bat behaviour around a wind-turbine – including curiosity touch and go exploration of the object (tower and stationary blade) as well as bats falling out of the sky without being actually hit (barotrauma) and of course direct strikes.
Scientists are also concerned why bats – which have excellent echo location sonar and should have no problem identifying a moving turbine blade – seem to be attracted to them.
One suggestion is that from a distance the wing tip vortices created by the blades may be mistaken by the bats for a swirling cloud of insects – or a rather attractive dinner.
Similarly large soaring raptors can be seen to “suicidally” circle wind turbines for no apparent reason. Again it is thought that the raptors pick up on the wingtip vortices and cruise around in them looking for a free “lift” as they do for thermals. Clearly seen in the video link below…..
Raptors wingtip feathers “sense” rising and falling airflow (like a glider’s variometer instrument informs the pilot) it does not consider the turbine to be the cause nor does the bird consider it in any way dangerous. It is simply responding to millions of years of evolution dancing through the turbulence.
Theoretical wake vortex of a wind turbine.
Actual wake vortex made visible by unusual weather conditions.
It is quite possible that raptors intercept these “false thermals” and unintentionally “surf” them to their doom (as can be seen in video link above).
Glider pilots will tell you they share the airspace with soaring birds (modern gliders have better “sink” rates than birds) and you can watch them adjust their flight to remain in the thermal and the glider pilot following his variometer finds himself flying the same course as the birds.
A soaring bird crossing the downwind vortex trail would, on exiting an area of lift will turn back in to it and on subsequent crossings reverse the direction of turn – by this navigation method it zig zags or circles up towards the turbine. Once the bird passes the turbine it turns once again to find the “thermal” it was using. This then becomes the “suicidal” behaviour we see.
Clearly the fatal footprint of a wind turbine is very much larger that the physical space it occupies.
It has recently been discovered that birds flying in typical “V” formations do so for reason of energy conservation – stealing a little bit of lift from the wing vortices of the bird diagonally ahead – this behaviour was previously thought to be a line of sight issue.
This behaviour is typical for large migratory bird species – also at risk from the presence of wind turbines.
Migratory birds travelling over water typically adjust their flight paths to fly over islands to gain the benefit of any thermal lift. An offshore wind turbine would look like a tree, obviously must be supported by an “island” – so they adjust their flight path – through the rotating turbine which in most cases are large enough to transect the typical flight altitude of migratory birds. Again birds adopt these altitudes to best make use of thermals and conserve energy.
The above behaviour patterns explain the disproportionate mortality for larger birds, particularly large soaring birds like raptors and migratory species.
Because these are "Eco-friendly" projects the environmental impact study is either glossed over or by-passed completely in spite of the fact that a typical wind farm involves a hundred of these intrusive towers each with a 2500-3500 Ton foundation, about a kilometre of road per tower and extensive power grids.
A great number of wind and solar projects have in fact been built in “Bio-diversity” and “Wildlife Sanctuary’s” – where no building is normally allowed – see the following link :-
BBC Admits: Green Energy Plants Threaten Wildlife Habitats
It looks like environmentalists are starting to wake up to the fact that wind and solar are in no way “Eco-Friendly” !
Wind Turbines chop birds & bats to pieces (even the endangered ones - seems they don't differentiate) are noisy (infrasound), generate annoying “light flicker” and universally detested by the neighbours. Property values diminish with the presence of wind farms.
Britain's Wind Farm Scam Threatens Economic Recovery
Wind power is endangering species that have survived numerous ice ages, sea level changes etc - Global Warming poses no threat to them - Wind Turbines are positively lethal - refer the following link that suggest that environmentalists are in a state of denial over this inconvenient truth.
Refer to the following article in which windpower companies are using bird mortality figures and sampling guidelines for 50-60m high wind turbines on 100-130m wind turbines in order to “gloss over” the damage being done to bird (and particularly raptor) populations. They also indulge in wishful thinking such as 30 day periods between surveys when they know from other studies that most carcasses are removed by scavengers within 10 days thus underreporting avian mortalities by anywhere from 2 to 10 times the real values.
Wind turbines kill up to 39 million birds a year! - CFACT
The Irish Sea is festooned with offshore wind farms and sea bird numbers have fallen drastically – the greens are in denial and are trying desperately to find some other plausible cause – preferably finding some way of blaming man/climate change as the cause.
Admittedly causality remains unproven but a drop of 50 to 80% in some seabird populations, concomitant with the growth in offshore wind farms, is certainly alarming.
As Wind Farms Overwhelm The Irish Sea, Isle Of Man Seabird Populations Plummet
It is impossible to determine mortality rates caused by offshore wind turbines as carcasses are simply lost to the sea. I’m sure they could study it if they tried but I suspect lack of motivation to go looking for evidence that runs counter to their belief system / narrative.
Two sides to every story.
P.S. I believe the term Margerine comes from the Greek Margeron - for Pearl -apparently because under a microscope the inverse emulsion looks like pearls.
https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/what-is-margarine#:~:text=Margarine's%20name%20derives%20from%20the,milky%2C%20pearl%2Dlike%20drops.&text=Modern%20margarine%20is%20usually%20made,oils%20that%20have%20been%20hydrogenated.
Regards, Ken
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