Patterns of migrating soaring migrants indicate attraction to marine wind farms – Royal Society

Henrik Skov, Mark Desholm, Stefan Heinänen, Johnny A. Kahlert, Bjarke
Laubek, Niels Einar Jensen, Ram nas ydelis, Bo Præstegaard Jensen
Published 21 December 2016.DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2016.0804

Abstract

Monitoring of bird migration at marine wind farms has a short history, and
unsurprisingly most studies have focused on the potential for collisions.
Risk for population impacts may exist to soaring migrants such as raptors
with K-strategic life-history characteristics. Soaring migrants display
strong dependence on thermals and updrafts and an affinity to land areas
and islands during their migration, a behaviour that creates corridors
where raptors move across narrow straits and sounds and are attracted to
islands. Several migration corridors for soaring birds overlap with the
development regions for marine wind farms in NW Europe. However, no
empirical data have yet been available on avoidance or attraction rates and
behavioural reactions of soaring migrants to marine wind farms. Based on a
post-construction monitoring study, we show that all raptor species
displayed a significant attraction behaviour towards a wind farm. The
modified migratory behaviour was also significantly different from the
behaviour at nearby reference sites. The attraction was inversely related
to distance to the wind farm and was primarily recorded during periods of
adverse wind conditions. The attraction behaviour suggests that migrating
raptor species are far more at risk of colliding with wind turbines at sea
than hitherto assessed.

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