Tag: bird migration

Pros and Cons of Offshore Wind Farms

  • While the tower is around 3 miles north of Cleveland's shore, a viable wind farm would need to be at least 6 times farther out in Lake Erie. The wind monitoring tower measures the speed, direction, and height of Lake Erie's wind to determine if wind power generation on the lake is economically viable. (Photo courtesy of Lisa Ann Pinkerton)

Proposals for offshore wind farms, from the coasts of Texas to New England have the potential to generate more electricity than land turbines do. Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports these projects face various hurdles to becoming reality, but they’re not completely insurmountable:

Transcript

Proposals for offshore wind farms, from the coasts of Texas to New England have the potential to generate more electricity than land turbines do. Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports these projects face various hurdles to becoming reality but they’re not completely insurmountable:


Over the past few months, whenever the weather is favorable, Aaron Godwin of Green Energy Ohio rides a power boat several miles out into Lake Erie. Out on the on the city of Cleveland’s century old water intake structure he’s built a tall wind monitoring tower.


“The upper part of the tower is about 168 feet above the water, so we’re measuring at about 30, 40 and 50 meters, and dual instrumentation at each level, anemometers that measure wind speed and vanes that measure direction.”


Godwin’s got almost a year of wind data and today he’s installing a small wind turbine to confirm what he’s discovered: that the lake’s wind is roughly twice as strong as wind on land. So to Godwin offshore wind farms are inevitable, especially since 75 percent of the nation’s energy use is near coastal cities.


However, proposed projects everywhere face a number of hurdles. One of them is bird and bat migration. Some land turbines have killed creatures that flew too close. But in Denmark, where offshore wind is 15 years old, extensive water foul surveys show little change in bird behavior. Charlotte Boesen is an environmental planner for Dong Energy in Denmark.


“These birds, they do fly around the wind farm. They do not like flying over land you can say and maybe they in some sort they perceive the turbines or wind farm as a similar object.”


Even so, no wind project in the US will ever get off the ground without a full assessment of potential wildlife impacts. That’s why 60% of Lake Erie has already been ruled out by a preliminary study conducted by the wind consulting firm AWS True Wind. Its Executive Director Bruce Bailey says that leaves most of eastern Lake Erie still available, with the best wind about 15 miles northwest of Cleveland.


“That’s where the strongest winds would be found. With water depths still being under say 70 feet.”


Bailey adds the shallow depth of Lake Erie combined with its solid lake bottom and fresh water makes it more friendly to offshore wind generation than oceans.


“You wouldn’t have to deal with the corrosion or the extra cost to safeguard your hardware from corrosion if you’re sighted in a fresh water lake.”


Bailey adds designing against hurricanes makes ocean projects more expensive. On the flip side, Lake Erie’s been known to freeze.


“There are ways to deflect the ice from actually pushing too strongly against or lifting out a turbine foundation. Some of them have already been deployed already in offshore projects in Northern Europe, and some of them are located in locations where you might even get icebergs.”


Another concern is whether these turbines will ruin the natural beauty of America’s Coastlines, even though on the horizon a turbine might only look a big as a thumbnail. Walt Musel of the US Department of Energy says this worry is unfounded.


“It’s worth noting there are no projects in the United States, so most people who object to offshore wind have never seen one.”


Fifteen years ago, projects in Denmark faced the same prejudice. Today tourists rent boats to go see them.


Above all, perhaps the largest impediment to offshore wind power is its high cost. Installation in water is expected to be double the cost of on land construction. However, once farms are producing power, electricity companies are open to buying it.


Out on Lake Erie, Aaron Godwin is packing up his tools for the day. He says there is an up side to those high capital costs. He says in the future, turbines will be so large it’ll make more sense to manufacture the parts locally, giving America’s manufacturing industry a ray of hope.


“Energy is a guaranteed growth market. Wind power is the fastest growing energy sector in the entire world. Why would you not want to get involved in that guaranteed growth market? It just does not make sense.”


Godwin says if the US can clear these hurdles of public perception, engineering, and environmental impacts, he thinks the US economy might find a pleasant surprise: consistent, green energy, built and harnessed off the blue coasts of America.


For the Environment Report, I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton.

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Safer Winter Home for Whooping Cranes?

The small flock of whooping cranes being reintroduced in the eastern U.S. may have a safer time at their winter home in Florida this year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach explains:

Transcript

The small flock of whooping cranes being reintroduced in the eastern U.S. may have a safer time
at their winter home in Florida this year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach
explains:


Last year, bobcats killed two of the migrating whooping cranes that were staying at the
Chassahowitzka wildlife refuge in Florida.


The cranes like to roost in a certain amount of water, but when the tide level inside their pen
wasn’t right, the birds went to an unprotected area and the bobcats attacked. This year, refuge
managers have taken steps to help the 20 or so cranes roost inside their pens.


Whooping crane Eastern partnership spokesperson, Heather Ray, says many tons of oyster shells
have been dumped into a protected area where the tide flows in and out.


“As the tide goes out, the birds can, you know, move down on this oyster bed and still be in water
and as it comes in move up on it and still be in water, so they will hear predators approaching.”


It took about 300 helicopter loads to build the oyster reef. The whooping cranes will stay in
Florida until February or March, then are expected to head back toward Wisconsin.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach reporting.

Birders Flock to Hawk Mountain

Each fall, thousands of hawks, eagles, and other birds of prey fly hundreds of miles in search of warmer climates. And between August and December, nearly 70-thousand people will climb to the top of a bird sanctuary called Hawk Mountain to get a closer look at those birds. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brad Linder reports:

Transcript

Each fall, about thousands of hawks, eagles, and other birds of prey fly hundreds of miles
in search of warmer climates. And between August and December, nearly 70-thousand
people will climb to the top of a bird sanctuary called Hawk Mountain to get a closer
look at those birds. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brad Linder reports:


“Those of you haven’t found the osprey, it’s over there at owl’s head, naked eye here to
the right.”


On a clear day, the view from atop Hawk Mountain stretches for more than fifty miles.
But on this particularly hazy Saturday afternoon, bird-watchers are pushing their
binoculars and telescopes to the limits.


“Well, we’re making them out there, they’re coming in. It’s like you just gotta wait ’til
they get a little closer than what they typically do. They’ve been popping out of clouds
and haze all day for us.”


Doug Wood is a volunteer at Hawk Mountain in Eastern Pennsylvania. This afternoon,
he’s the official bird counter.


“We’re basically taking a lot of field information. Wind, weather, temperature, cloud
cover, wind direction. And then we’re basically monitoring the birds’ species, age, sex,
and recording it every hour.


“Look! An Osprey! And then fade to scene change.”


Researchers at Hawk Mountain have been keeping records of osprey and other migratory
raptors for more than seventy years, making it the oldest monitoring station in the world.


In the early twentieth century, hunters would shoot thousands of birds from the
mountainside each year. Today, people travel from all over the world to shoot birds with
their cameras.


Matt Wong came all the way from New Zealand to study at the sanctuary.


“Hawk Mountain is internationally renowned as a hawk watch site. And also a place
where big research actually happens. Now, not many of the locals around Pennsylvania
actually realize this, but it’s actually huge on the international scene. It’s world
recognized, and that’s one of the reasons why I came here.”


In Wong’s country, there are only two species of raptors. In America, he’s had a chance
to study dozens of varieties.


But even with so many different species populating North America, many people still
think of them as strangers or sometimes even as monsters.


“I still get, amazingly to me, a lot of people that think that these birds are out to get us.”


Volunteer Bob Owens has spent the last 20 years doing education programs at Hawk
Mountain.


“If you intrude into their territory when they have young in the nest, or something like
that, yeah, they’re probably going to chase you. As far as them killing babies and taking
them from baby carriages, this is all old wives tales. This just does not happen.”


Owens runs a small farm for a living, where he says hawks and barn owls help keep
rodents under control. But in a larger sense, Owens says there’s a lot people can learn
from these birds.


“Any three and a half pound bird that can apply four hundred pounds of pressure with its
talons is built to do what they’re doing. They are at the top of the food chain. And that’s
the other big thing that it shows us. It just opens up a door here as to all the reasons the
birds are either dropping or rising in population. What are we doing?”


Owens says in the seventy years researchers at Hawk Mountain have been counting birds,
they’ve seen populations rise and fall. Hawks and eagles are hardy birds. But even the
most successful predators can fall victim to environmental change.


Keith Bildstein is the sanctuary’s director of conservation programs. He says raptors are
like sensitive tools, telling researchers when something’s wrong with an ecosystem.


“Birds of prey are excellent biological indicators. In the middle of the last century they
told us that we were having a problem with our misuse of organochlorine pesticides,
specifically DDT. Today, they’re leading us in explorations of the spread of West Nile
Virus.”


Bildstein says because raptors are at the top of the food chain, when their numbers fall
it’s a pretty good sign that their food source is dwindling, their habitat could be
disappearing, or air quality might be suffering.


But for most of Hawk Mountain’s visitors, the birds are more than barometers of a
healthy ecosystem. According to birder Judy Higgs, they’re beautiful creatures,
especially when viewed from a great height.


“These birds are just majestic. And the other thing is that they go so far. You know,
some of these birds are going to South America!”


Higgs first climbed the mountain in 1970, when she was a student at nearby Kutztown
University. Before moving out of state, Higgs used to come to Hawk Mountain daily…
she stills visits on weekends whenever she can.


“I used to do work in the morning, come here in the afternoon, go home, and finish my
work at night so I could be here.”


By day’s end, Higgs and her fellow birdwatchers count more than 600 raptors. During
the fall season, as many as 70-thousand predatory birds, from vultures to falcons might
pass by on their way to distant points.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Brad Linder.

Birds Steer Clear of Buildings

As fall bird migration nears its end, scientists in Chicago are seeing what they say is an encouraging trend. Fewer migrating birds are hitting the windows of tall high-rises. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jesse Hardman has more:

Transcript

As fall bird migration nears its end…scientists in Chicago are seeing what they say is an encouraging trend. Fewer migrating birds are hitting the windows of tall high-rises. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jesse Hardman has more.


Scientists at Chicago’s field museum say an estimated one hundred million birds die every year after hitting windows. They say many of those deaths come during annual migrations. Bird expert Dave Willard says he’s been patrolling Chicago’s McCormick Place convention center for twenty years…collecting winged casualties of fall migration.


Willard says those numbers are starting to go down.


“In 1996 we might have picked up anywhere between five hundred and one thousand birds in the fall, this fall it will be probably under fifty.”


Willard and his colleagues suggest bright light confuses night migrators who use the stars and moon to navigate. He says this year’s drop in death is a direct result of a city initiative asking buildings to pull window shades and dim lights at night. Willard says other Great Lakes cities like Toronto are trying similar programs.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium I’m Jesse Hardman.