Bishop Hill The eagle has crash landed
Dec 20, 2013 Energy: wind I few days back I was pressing Harry Huyton, the RSPB's climate change bod, about the society's weak opposition to wind farms. His position is that the RSPB opposes windfarms when inappropriately sited. I pointed out that windfarms tend to be in upland areas, where raptors - particularly prone to wind turbine collisions - tend to be found in large numbers.
It also occurred to me that the society has been trying to reintroduce sea eagles in the east of Scotland, an area in which windfarm development is frantic and so I thought I would try to work out just how much overlap there is between the two. The RSPB's sea eagle newsletter has a useful map of sightings and maps of windfarm developments are also easy to get one's hands on.
Here are the results. I've fairly crudely superimposed the two maps and shaded out the east-coast wind farms in black, leaving the large coloured dots that represent the sea eagle sightings (ignore the small dots - that's just more windfarms).
The size of the dots for the eagles represents the number sighted rather than a range, but given that sea eagles have a range of up to 70 km, it's clear that the RSPB is going to have to oppose all east-coast windfarm developments north of the Firth of Forth and South of Aberdeen.
I'll ask Harry if he'd like to comment.
Reader Comments (49)
I vividly remember Stephen Fry reading out on QI a stern and definitive statement from the RSPB declaring that NO birds at all had been killed by wind turbines.
Whatever illusion I had that the RSPB's primary concern was actually for... erm , birds, died at that moment.
Can someone confirm whether the laws were changed do as to make killing a bird by windmill no longer a criminal act?
I mean, if you shoot one with a gun or turn one in to furry mince meat with a wind turbine shouldn't both acts be treated as a criminal act?
Regards
Mailman
Evidence suggests this is patently untrue. RSBP refused to object (at the public inquiries) to SSE's Griffin and Callichar windfarms in Highland Perthshire, despite pleas from the local Raptor Group. Griffin rotors killed at least 2 hen harriers in its first year of operation. Calliachar is still under construction, but it should never have been consented due to its high level location which is ideal eagle habitat. Indeed there is a eagle (golden) nest site within a few km of some of the turbines. SSE have plans to extend both wind farms, and now Force9 (acting for EDF) have plans for 15 turbines on the Griifin's southern boundary. Many locals are fed up fighting these wind developers, and if the RSPB objected the task would be much easier. The RSPB have an opportunity here to make amends and show that they do care for raptor populations in this part of the Highlands, so maybe harry could assure us that the RSBP will be objecting to these new proposals (and the unthinkable yet proposed Tallabeithe wind farm to the north of Loch Rannoch which also sits in classic eagle country).
But it's never really been about the environment or wildlife, that's just a convenient cover story - like the WWF panda. We see road protests because there's a rare snail or some other disruption to habitat, fracking protests with blatant lies about the impact, the rabid hostility to fossil fuel derived carbon(dioxide) - that means anything productive. Yet nothing about the environmental impacts of wind turbines, the noise, the birds/bats killed, the huge number of vehicle movements during construction, the carbon(dioxide) released in the production of the hundreds of tonnes per turbine of concrete.
The environmental (actually anti-capitalist) lunatics have penetrated organisations like the RSPB to such an extent that their original 'mission' has become secondary. Even if wind turbines reduced CO2 and even if CO2 reduction was beneficial how can the RSPB justify anything short of strong opposition? Given the reality of CO2 and wind turbines the RSPB's lack of noise is a clear sign of corruption in the ranks.
Don't give to these charities while they're supporting eco-facists.
Ironic that measures to fight Global warming are more of a risk to rare birds that Global warming ever could be
This man is living in cloud cuckoo land. The PRPB themselves have applied for a wind turbine near Newburgh Aberdeenshire on their OWN wildlife reserve which is a world class wildfowl resting and migration site.
Personally however if I thought only raptors would be killed by wind turbines I would be delighted, although not possibly sea eagles or golden eagles. However there are now so many raptors due to the RSPB's misguided policies for protection of all raptors, that I no longer have any songbirds left near me after 'hosting' two buzzards and two sparrow hawks in nearby fields.
Like the rest of the eco Taliban they've got their heads in the sand.
"Thanks for the donation Wind farm company & Green Investment fund, I'll see you guys again at the next green gathering shindig"
lapogus / jaffa
And if they were really concerned about the birds and their environment — which is what all those old dears leave them money in their wills for — they wouldn't be actively opposing fracking, would they?
In fact the RSPB is now under the control of a bunch of hypocrites whose interest in birds comes a distinctly remote second to their support for eco-lunacy (plus their own increasingly fat salaries of course).
The RSPB has applied for a wind turbine at their bird sanctuary headquarters at Sandy Lodge, Sandy, Bedfordshire. The details are on their own website. A couple of weeks ago they released the statement " we have completed our survey and are satisfied that Sandy Ridge is a suitable site for a single turbine" Further it will generate enough power to provide half their national power requirement, through the grid of course, generating huge saving (from the rental income via the fee in tariff). This probably answers all the questions raised by this posting.
A while back I tried to get some figures out of the RSPB on windfarm mortality but kept getting anodyne hand-waving about "considerate siting" and the like.
I resigned.
A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine.
@John B,
"Eco-Taliban" sums up nicely how reactionary and corrupt our self-appointed environmentally enlightened have become.
"The RSPB is the UK charity working to secure a healthy environment for birds and all wildlife"
I wonder if their charitable status could be challenged on the basis that they quite obviously _aren't_ doing this?
We have entered a two-month period in which we can file comments against wind turbines that are due to be built practically in our back yard (three within 2000 meters; 77 total). This in the Niagara Peninsula, Ontario.
I am compiling a host of articles and research against wind turbines, both for an article of my own, and to submit to comments on the turbines slated for our area. I would like to include this article, if I may?
And, question: is it the Red circles, which indicate Eagle sightings? I want to be certain of what I write.
Thanks in advance!
The RSPB are not so much burying their heads in the sand, as having heads up their arses! They do not think things through & in simple ignorance & arrogance, blame global warming for everything! Sparrowhawks become a protected species, a few years later, said RSPB observe a reduction in Sparrow populations (not in Devon it seems), so they blame global warming for it. They make Magpies a protected species. Magpies hunt Thrushes & the like. They then observe that the local Thrush populations are dwindling, so they blame global warming for it! The same simplistic arrogance of people who demanded Badger protection. Badgers are made a protected species. Then they observe that Hedgehog populations appear to be in decline......................yes you guessed it, Badgers hunt Hedgehogs among many other things! What's the point of joined up thinking?
Otter; I posted this on "Unthreaded" earlier which may be of interest:
" Following some links in a thread on WUWT I found these reports which may be of interest wrt to windfarm performance and impact on overall grid efficiencies:
http://www.clepair.net/windsecret.html
http://www.bentekenergy.com/WindCoalandGasStudy.aspx
Both of them support the argument that windfarms have the unintended consequence of making the whole system less efficient, thus reducing or negating any benefits. "
In case you have not seen it, Prof Gordon Hughes has done some excellent work on windfarm performance and durability.
The RSPB is a multi-million pound operation.
"The RSPB is the UK charity working to secure a healthy environment for birds and all wildlife"
In the event they achieved this they would be out of a job.
In 2007-8 the CEO's "compensation" was in the region of £100,000 . I doubt if it has gone down since then. Any questions?
Mikeh~ Thanks very much! Excellent angle, one I had not thought of. These will be read and added to the mix!
His position will be that any rare birds killed, died willingly, proud in the knowledge that their sacrifice saved the rest of the bird population from Thermageddon.
All hail Gaia!
We must destroy the birds in order to save the birds.
Two red kites hovering outside my window as I type, so beautiful to watch...they don't like the magpies though (are they really protected; horrible things).
Here in the North West of Scotland - overlooking Gruinard Island, where Sea Eagles repeatedly nest - locals are fighting off plans put forward by a few people under a 'community' guise to build a 255ft high turbine. This would be in the Assynt National Scenic Area and it would be visible from much of the Wester Ross National Scenic Area, including the world famous Mellon Udrigle beach. It would also be on peat and it would dominate Gruinard Bay and the Summer Isles. Golden Eagles and Hen Harriers are almost common in the area. Rare black throated divers are also present.
The RSPB have done bugger all, but then again they do receive money from turbine companies. They also make it clear on their website that they value carbon over bird life:
"We've teamed up with leading green energy company Ecotricity to fight climate change, protect wildlife and safeguard habitats."
They ignore the fact that climate change cannot be fought and that turbines destroy carbon sink peat bogs and thriving habitats.
PLEASE OBJECT HERE: http://wam.highland.gov.uk/wam/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=makeComment&keyVal=MPO6XEIH7R000
Apologies if this is a repeat. I've just twigged who JohnB is (97% confidence)
Over the years this gentleman has given me, and countless others, enormous pleasure and much food for thought from his blog.
Here's a wee taste of his thoughts on raptors and songbirds :
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/unbalance_sheet.htm
In the spirit of Christmas I've made a wee gift into his begging bowl and I would encourage others to show a similar response to thank one of our brightest and best.
Merry Xmas John and all the BH crew.
Last week I saw a woman carrying a box. On the outside was:
"RSPB: Giving Nature a Home"
Mindless arrogance. If Mother Nature farted, these people, like any of us, could disappear without trace. If someone were to inadvertently nuke, say, the Farne Islands, then as soon as the place had cooled down, there would be birds back there again. And yet these eejits are daft enough to imagine that THEY are doing the mothering.
I suppose, along with the arrogance goes hypocrisy and greed for power, and corruption. They won't be getting a penny of my money. They just want the rest of us to pay for their hobby.
When I made a point to the RSPB about a news story on bird and raptor casualties from windfarms via their website I received a reply from
Ben Andrew
Wildlife Adviser
UK Headquarters, The Lodge, Sandy, Bedfordshire SG19 2DL
Tel 01767 69 3398
rspb.org.uk
Amongst other things he said:
This news story is an excellent example of why we have a wind farm policy based on science and education.
Here in the UK we do not support every single wind farm/turbine application, we actually oppose many of them.
Thorough environmental assessment is vital to ensure that all ecological impacts are fully identified prior to consent of any development.
Where developers are willing to adapt plans to reduce impacts to acceptable levels we withdraw our objections, in other cases we robustly oppose them.
The weasel words in my opinion were.
However, there are gaps in knowledge and understanding of the impacts of wind energy, so the environmental impact of operational wind farms needs to be monitored - and policies and practices need to be adaptable, as we learn more about the impacts of wind farms on birds.
This was the cloud cuckoo land bit
We are calling for a more strategic and long-term planning approach to wind development than is currently being taken. With the right strategy and planning safeguards, and with co-operation between developers and conservationists, renewable targets can be achieved without significant detrimental effects on birds of conservation concern or their habitats.
A windygig without avian casualties seems impossible to me, without going into the renewable targets issues.
Thanks for showing me that SandyS.
All of the madness can be cured if we just stop the subsidies.
If we do this then the house of cards will quickly fall > Big Green can't afford to fund other organisations > their PR machine disintegrates > misguided public support turns on them > turbines will rot and the age of gas, coal and nuclear will be celebrated, not politically derided > prices of coal, gas and nuclear can be allowed to come down to natural levels as opposed to being artificially inflated.
Contrary to Big Green myth, when this happens the sky will not fall in, the Thames will not dry out and we will continue to have a functioning economy.
Time to start voting UKIP.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/4/29/green-groups-funded-by-big-wind.html
The sad thing about off-shore windmills, along with their economic and maintenance nightmares, is that birds, and especially soaring birds that perch on high places, will see the tall towers as excellent places to rest. The wind farms will draw birds to it. And they'll kill a an unacceptable percentage of them.
You may also like to ask Harry when the Wash was shifted ".....The Wash – the “bite” out of the west coast between Lincolnshire and Norfolk......."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/government-to-make-40-per-cent-of-britain-available-for-fracking-9011504.html
Sandy S said the RSPB said "Here in the UK we do not support every single wind farm/turbine application, we actually oppose many of them."
Their website says:
We are involved in scrutinising hundreds of wind farm applications every year to determine their likely wildlife impacts, and we ultimately object to about 6% of those we engage with, because they threaten bird populations. Where developers are willing to adapt plans to reduce impacts to acceptable levels we withdraw our objections, in other cases we robustly oppose them.
Seems the claim of "many" is a little strong, if they look at 250 applications then they oppose 15, and it's unclear if the number might be lower if the developer adapts their plans.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/policy/windfarms/
I get tired of posting this but environmentists are evil people. They are not mistaken ideologues .the evil that they will do is the evil that they intend to do. I can see no solution other than an act of attainder.
No group claiming to exist for the purpose of protecting flying creatures should accept any large scale wind turbines. There is no way to keep birds from flying into them. The studies about where birds are *sighted* do not tell us where birds will or will not fly. Weather events can drive birds far out of their typical flight zones. Even without weather events birds can and do vary their flight paths significantly.
And bats are even more vulnerable and less well studied than birds.
To find out that a so-called conservation group is profiting from wind power is likely an amazing demonstration of corruption of cause and conflict of interest.
Dec 20, 2013 at 3:17 PM | SandyS
A windygig without avian casualties seems impossible to me, without going into the renewable targets issues.
My domestic fan has a wire cage around it for safety. Maybe we could have these around wind turbines. Apart from anything else this would:
use up more megatons of otherwise useful materials
allow them to blow over in a moderate wind
reduce efficiency by ~90%
make wind farms even more obtrusive
drastically increase the need for subsidies…
Why haven't the greenies thought (sorry) of this?
Clive Best on Dec 20, 2013 at 2:28 PM
Even more reason to be dismayed:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/4/10/myles-nigel-and-bjorn.html?currentPage=2#comments
.. and search for my post!
It has this link:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmenergy/writev/517/m59.htm
Wind turbines like any other high building create thermals.
A thermal is an upwards draft of wind turbulence.
Birds circle around buildings or Turbines using these thermals to give them extra altitude in flight.
This extra altitude gives the bird much needed extra range on an extended glide path.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NAAzBArYdw
Infamous Youtube clip
Watch how the bird is circling close to the Turbine ,its searching for a Thermal to give it lift when it is clipped by the Turbine Blade.
Once again warning if you are uncomfortable seeing needless cruelty to animal please dont watch.
@ Mickey Reno, Dec 20, 2013 at 3:47 PM
"The sad thing about off-shore windmills, ...... is that birds, and especially soaring birds that perch on high places, will see the tall towers as excellent places to rest. The wind farms will draw birds to it. And they'll kill a an unacceptable percentage of them."
The even-worse thing is, the tides will then disperse the evidence.
RoyFOMR
That 97% is fallible in this case. You've been reading too much Cook papers methinks. Wrong target this time.
SandyS -
To give the devil his due, if the RSPB opposed everything which would result in avian casualties, they would immediately turn into BANANABs (build absolutely nothing anywhere near any birds). [Which at least is pleasingly palindromic.] A criterion of avoiding "significant detrimental effects on birds of conservation concern or their habitats" seems like a sensible approach.
I agree that their embrace of wind power as a solution to "the climate change problem" is misguided. However, as one who has long been frustrated by the near-endless delays related to real or imagined environmental concerns, I don't agree with a strategy of opposing wind farms because they will cause bird fatalities. I think such are likely unavoidable with any large development, and paralysis due to a fear of causing any changes is a terrible thing. Rather, it would be better to focus on the economic subsidies which promote such irrational development.
Bird strike on a turbine at sea cant be registered. The bodies of the birds fall into the sea and are washed away.
Bird strike on a Turbine on land the bodies of the bird fall on the ground and then subsequently eaten by Rats and Foxes.
Confidential Data must exist of people walking around the foot of each turbine everyday registering and photographing the carcass of each bird Perhaps even using Avian Radar or Infra Red CCTV
Hamish 3.40 20 December
"All of the madness can be cured if we just stop the subsidies."
Exactly. The true greenshirts will go on hooting and jabbering, as they do: but their corrupt fellow-travellers - without whom they would be nothing - will be nowhere to be seen. This WILL happen: the only question is how much suffering they can cause before it does, and in its aftermath. And will it be a Thatcher or a Cromwell who does the deed?
Great name, by the way.
Gordon 4.41 20 December
"[Environmentalists] are not mistaken ideologues .the evil that they will do is the evil that they intend to do."
This is the truth. It is always best to assume that vicious fanatics mean what they say when they say bad things: because, generally, they do.
Based on their rhetoric around population size, there are people in environmentalism who are a good deal more blood-thirsty than Pol Pot. This is an ideology that essentially views ALL human activity - human existence itself - as a stain on the Earth that must be removed.
This is why I dislike the term "dramagreens", in vogue here a week or two ago: it trivialises them. In Britain we had the luxury of sniggering at Roderick Spode and the Blackshorts (nasty as the BUF was): elsewhere things were all a lot less funny.
Can somebody not design a wind turbine that will mince Aberdeen seagulls? Please?
It'd be a wind win situation.
From SandyS above, quoting RSPB:
"Where developers are willing to adapt plans to reduce impacts to acceptable levels we withdraw our objections, in other cases we robustly oppose them."
I had a mate who was very senior in a wind company who told me over a pint that it is a matter of course to put in applications for farms contaning 30% more turbines than they actually wanted, so that when challenged they could drop them and be seen to be 'adapting' to local sensibilities. They then get permission for what they wanted in the first place.
This state of affairs comes about because the planning and councillors/officers are clueless about the real technicalities; can't, or can't be bothered to read the technical documents, and think that because they've beaten the proposal down that they've won a victory of some sort.
Like their counterparts in central government, they couldn't negotiate their way out of a puddle and are taken to the cleaners by any half decent commercial manager.
There may (just, at a stretch) be some scope for debate about 'climate sensitivity' and 'global average temperatures' and 'natural variability'. There is no scope for debate about whirligigs. Anyone can see in ten minutes how completely useless they are and those responsible for them are guilty of a blatant conspiracy to defraud and impoverish the public at large.
I know it won't happen, especially in my lifetime.
But I really dream that the day will dawn when Harry Huyton and his senior chums in RSPB, together with everyone in Renewables UK and the Contractors and Consultants who build the Whirligigs, and the likes of Sir Reginald Sheffield (Dave Boy's Father-in Law) and the politicos from Miliband, Huhne, Davey, to Yeo, Salmond and Veggie Benn (and scores more), the 'Environmentalists' at the Beeb, the Grauniad, the Indy and not forgetting everyone at DECC, are held to account for this blatant nonsense.
And on the basis that the punishment should fit the crime, I would suggest that it would be absolutely appropriate if they were all sentenced to be given hammers and coal chisels and made to break out all the whirligig foundations.
After all, it would be cruel and against their religion to make them use diesel burning plant to break them out.
Cumbrian Lad
When I worked for Plessey we had to put every purchase requisition over £50 (it was a long time ago) through the MD for approval. About 90% he reduced the quantity by 50%. The standard practice was when you needed to order something that breached the limit was to double the quantity ordered. This was often for things that lasted years and used in quantities of less than 10. (putting in two smaller value orders usually got intercepted in Purchasing). You can imagine that occasionally one of these went through unchanged. No one ever reduced the the order to the required quantity for fear of the whole system falling apart. The whole site (almost 8K employees at that time) had cupboards full of "Bob Authorised the whole PR" surpluses which were unlikely to be used.
Hopefully for windfarms we don't get the equivalent of these cupboards.
Come on, lets be honest, are you really concerned with raptor mortality? If you were it would seem to me that you would be focussing on the hundreds of rare raptors killed by Scottish game keepers every years through poisoning and shooting, or be aware that we have hundreds of wind turbines on the uplands of Wales but our signature raptor ( the red kite) has done amazingly well over the last 25 years. I know you hate wind turbines on principle, but I think it's better to stick to the real reasons for hating them such as poor economics, opposition to climate change science, environmentalism etc. Weeping crocodile tears over something you are not really worried about and is not really a crisis just sounds pretty desperate. Wind turbines killing raptors is a tragedy, but there are much greater causes of mortality we could do something about if we were genuinely concerned for the wellbeing of these magnificent birds.
The RSPB is yet another organisation that started many years ago with the best of intentions but has now completely lost its way. Surely organisations like this that purport to protect birds whilst allowing and supporting the machines that kill them are in breach of the Trades Description Act.
On a recent viit to Holy Island (Lindisfarne) I went up the observation tower that gives you a view across the countryside. At the base of the large observation windows there is a picture and description of the various landmarks around. One of these is the large wind farm on the Northumberland coast (recently described by Matt Ridley as a 'Golgotha', and having seen it, I can see what he means).
The landmark guide mentions the windfarm, and then quite innocently adds that 'many species of birds can be seen around the bottom of the towers'. It didn't mention what state said birds would be in!
Garethman
Where did you get the impression that anyone here was happy with killing protected species by whatever group by any means?
"it's clear that the RSPB is going to have to oppose all east-coast windfarm developments north of the Firth of Forth and South of Aberdeen".
The RSPB didn't have much influence 10 years ago in preventing the Smola wind farm being built as the second comment indicates on the article of August this year from BusinessGreen.
"The fact is this particular wind farm (Smola) should never have been built in the first place, as it is a site with a high eagle population (the RSPB among others pointed this out).
In the UK advance planning and avoiding areas of high importance to birds is what prevents bird deaths".
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2287248/will-black-wind-turbine-blades-be-enough-to-warn-off-birds