Number of Dead Birds Floating on the Water.

[Greemble]

I am interested to know what use that would be. Can you give a more detailed post?

Trump has often criticised wind power in his political speeches. Trump has said windmills cause cancer, kill birds and prevent people from watching television when the wind is not blowing.

 

[mjcoon]

Another random sad thing is the leaf blotch thing, seems to badly affecting all the horse chestnuts..

I think that is caused by an invasive moth whose larvae eat the leaves from the inside ("miners").

 

[Yealm]

I think that is caused by an invasive moth whose larvae eat the leaves from the inside ("miners").

I can't believe it does them any good - so sad, another species might be following the elms..

 

[ProDave]

I thought the bird flu passed through the north of Scotland earlier in the year, it devestated colonies in Shetland and Orkney early in the year then the east coast shortly after. I have not seem many dead birds lately and plenty of living ones, so I thought it had largely passed through here now.

Has it only just got to the far south west of the UK then?

Some summer migrating birds, most notably for us the swifts where I estimate there are barely 10% of the numbers we normally get in a summer.

 

[mjcoon]

I can't believe it does them any good - so sad, another species might be following the elms..

No, I'm sure it does not! But has been hitting them for some years already. There was a citizen-science survey a few years ago.
www.rhs.org.uk/biodiversity/horse-chestnut-leaf-mining-moth

 

[johnalison]

I thought the bird flu passed through the north of Scotland earlier in the year, it devestated colonies in Shetland and Orkney early in the year then the east coast shortly after. I have not seem many dead birds lately and plenty of living ones, so I thought it had largely passed through here now.

Has it only just got to the far south west of the UK then?

Some summer migrating birds, most notably for us the swifts where I estimate there are barely 10% of the numbers we normally get in a summer.

I saw four or five swifts the other evening from a window but I think that other factors are more likely to be relevant in their case for limiting their numbers, such as the paucity of nest sites and drop in insect numbers. I think there have been about average numbers of swallows around my marina this year, maybe even more in mid summer, which I found encouraging. With swifts spending most of their life on the wing, I would guess that they are at lower than average risk of bird ’flu. I saw a programme on TV the other day with a developer showing how easy it is to install nest sites in new buildings, a special nest brick being demonstrated, so I like to think that this will catch on.

 

[Mister E]

Just read Bird Flu is bad here in Wales.

 

[Sandy]

Trump has often criticised wind power in his political speeches. Trump has said windmills cause cancer, kill birds and prevent people from watching television when the wind is not blowing.

As far as I know there are no wind farms off the south Devon or Cornish coast, I am sure we would have seen them. Well apart from when the heavens opened and all of August's usual rainfall fell in 10 minutes.

 

[TiggerToo]

Yes, noticed dead gannets around the SW coast.

Another random sad thing is the leaf blotch thing, seems to badly affecting all the horse chestnuts..

Horse chestnut leaf miner.

 

[DavidonMersea]

I have not seem many dead birds lately and plenty of living ones, so I thought it had largely passed through here now.

Has it only just got to the far south west of the UK then?

 

[Hjem]

Trump has often criticised wind power in his political speeches. Trump has said windmills cause cancer, kill birds and prevent people from watching television when the wind is not blowing.

Crazy stuff, I've worked in the wind energy sector for 11 years now and we've done a lot to try and bring facts to some of the popular myths held about the industry. We commissioned a study in conjunction with several universities and we were able to estimate that around sixty thousand birds are killed per year in the UK by colliding with wind turbines. A sobering comparison is that the estimated number of birds killed in the UK by domestic cats is estimated at sixty MILLION per year. Neither stat is great, but when it comes to using bird deaths as a primary factor of not installing additional wind capacity, the source has frequently been found to be coming from the fossil industry.

 

[Daydream believer]

So with 60 million bird deaths a year would there be any benefit to the energy sector in using cats as a fuel source?

 

[Hjem]

So with 60 million bird deaths a year would there be any benefit to the energy sector in using cats as a fuel source?

Meow you're talking!

 

[gordmac]

Purrhaps not!

 

[johnalison]

Crazy stuff, I've worked in the wind energy sector for 11 years now and we've done a lot to try and bring facts to some of the popular myths held about the industry. We commissioned a study in conjunction with several universities and we were able to estimate that around sixty thousand birds are killed per year in the UK by colliding with wind turbines. A sobering comparison is that the estimated number of birds killed in the UK by domestic cats is estimated at sixty MILLION per year. Neither stat is great, but when it comes to using bird deaths as a primary factor of not installing additional wind capacity, the source has frequently been found to be coming from the fossil industry.

Without wishing to exonerate feline bird-destroyers, the question about wind turbines might be whether they adversely affect particular species flying certain migration routes and whether this might affect their numbers. I mention this because I don't know the answer but suspect that in some, maybe only a few, cases the overall numbers might be misleading.

 

[Daydream believer]

Obviously birds fly a set route. When in Holland late one year I saw numerous flocks of birds counting in their thousands, flying along the canal routes. As the canal I was on changed course, so did the flocks of birds. It was wierd that they were obviously navigating by the land features. They were not flying particularly high. Certainly within the height of windmill blades for some of them.These land features had not been there for all time, but presumably they had adapted, as different generations learned the route.
If in the interim someone were to stick a wind farm on the route, I could imagine hundreds being destroyed, until they worked out what was happening.

 

[Daydream believer]

Purrhaps not!

A paw response

 

[johnalison]

A paw response

Unless he invokes a get-out clawse.