Ornithological Report: Kapıdağ Windfarm Project 34 MW ... · Ornithological Report: Kapıdağ...
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Ornithological Report: Kapıdağ Windfarm Project 34 MW, Balıkesir, Turkey. Kerem Ali Boyla, MSc Ecologist, Ornithologist [email protected] +90 (533) 3775191 Istanbul, Turkey Report prepare for: Aksa Enerji Üretim A.Ş. Gülbahar Cad. 1. Sok. 34212 Güneşli / İstanbul, Turkey Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized
Transcript of Ornithological Report: Kapıdağ Windfarm Project 34 MW ... · Ornithological Report: Kapıdağ...
Ornithological Report: Kapıdağ Windfarm Project 34 MW, Balıkesir, Turkey.
Kerem Ali Boyla, MSc Ecologist, Ornithologist [email protected] +90 (533) 3775191 Istanbul, Turkey Report prepare for: Aksa Enerji Üretim A.Ş. Gülbahar Cad. 1. Sok. 34212 Güneşli / İstanbul, Turkey
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Ornithological Report: Kapıdağ Windfarm January 2011
List of Contents List of Figures and Tables.......................................................................................................... 3 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 4 Site Location and Flyway of Migrant Birds............................................................................... 4
Conservation Status................................................................................................................ 5 Migratory Soaring Birds......................................................................................................... 5 Migration over Kapıdağ Peninsula......................................................................................... 7 Species of Concern: White pelican (Pelecanus onocrotalus) ................................................. 7
White Pelican migration over Kapıdağ Peninsula.............................................................. 8 Other Species of Migratory Soaring Birds......................................................................... 9
Impact Assessment ................................................................................................................... 10 Collisian Risk ....................................................................................................................... 10 Impact on other Bird Species ............................................................................................... 13
Birds of Prey above Mountain Ridges ............................................................................. 13 Non-breeding Birds .......................................................................................................... 13 Migrant Songbirds at Night.............................................................................................. 13 Barriers to Movement of Birds......................................................................................... 13
Possible Measures to Reduce Possible Impacts ....................................................................... 14 Powerlines around the Windfarm......................................................................................... 14 Configuration of Turbines within Wind Farms.................................................................... 14 Shutdown Orders.................................................................................................................. 14 Research and Monitoring ..................................................................................................... 15
Expected Results .............................................................................................................. 16 References ................................................................................................................................ 17
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List of Figures and Tables Figure 1. The location of Kapıdağ Windfarm project site in NW Turkey. Figure 2. The location of the 17 wind turbines on the Kapıdağ Peninsula. The each grey tones indicate an elevation level of 200 m. Figure 3. Major flyways of migratory soaring birds around the Mediterranean and Black Sea (from: Newton 2010) Figure 4. Migration sites of migratory soaring birds in NW Turkey. Figure 5. The total number of migrating White Pelican over Kapıdağ Peninsula in pentats (five-day periods) during spring 2008. Figure 6. The flight direction of migratory soaring birds over Kapıdağ Peninsula during spring 2008. Figure 7. The total number of migrating White Stork over Kapıdağ Peninsula in pentats (five-day periods) during spring 2008. Figure 8. Observation point, flight directions of the migratory soaring birds and the location of turbines in the Kapıdağ Peninsula. Figure 9. Possible flyways of migratory soaring birds over Marmara Islands and Kapıdağ Peninsula. Figure 10. The maximum and minimum height of the blade during rotation of turbines T1 - T14. Figure 11. The area of collision risk concern around the windfarm for the migratory soaring birds. Figure 12. Observation station for the proposed survey and wind turbines. Table 1. Populations of IBA trigger species in Marmara Islands IBA. Table 2. Bird species and estimated number of birds using West and East Mediterranean flyways (Newton 2010). Table 3. Example matrix of days to be visited during spring migration. The bold days are days of survey.
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Introduction Wind energy is considered as a clean and renewable energy source. However poorly sited or designed wind farms can pose a potential threat to vulnerable species and habitats, particularly to birds and bats (Hötker et al. 2004, Birdlife International 2005, Scottish Natural Heritage 2005). Aksa Enerji, a Turkish wind energy investor, is currently constructing a windfarm in Kapıdağ Peninsula, Balıkesir, NW Turkey. There are concerns that Kapıdağ Peninsula lies on a major flyways of migratory soaring birds. This report examines whether the Kapıdağ RES project might pose a threat to birds in Kapıdağ peninsula, particularly to migrant birds flying between Europe and Asia, as well as resident species.
Site Location and Flyway of Migrant Birds Kapıdağ Windfarm is located in Kapıdağ Peninsula, in Balıkesir Province of NW Turkey. It consists of 17 wind turbines of 2 MW power. Each turbine model is V80, the tower height is 78 m and the blade length is 40m.
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Bulgaria
Greece
BURSA
EDİRNE
TEKİRDAĞ
KIRKLARELİ
SAKARYA
BOLU
KOCAELİ
İSTANBUL
ÇANAKKALE BİLECİK
DÜZCE
BALIKESİR ANKARA
YALOVA
ZONGULDAKİSTANBUL
Figure 1. The location of Kapıdağ Windfarm project site in NW Turkey.
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BALIKESİR
ERDEK
BANDIRMA Figure 2. The location of the 17 wind turbines on the Kapıdağ Peninsula. The each grey tones indicate an elevation level of 200 m.
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Conservation Status The project site does not have any protection status. The only protection status on the Kapıdağ Peninsula is Natural SIT. The majority of the land surface of Yukarıyapıcı, Aşağıyapıcı, Belkıs, Çeltikçi villages near Erdek have been declared as primary SIT area in1989 by The Higher Council of Monuments (Anıtlar Yüksek Kurulu). The peninsula, together with the neighbouring islands, principally Marmara, Avşa, Ekincik and Paşalimanı islands, is recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) (Kılıç and Eken 2006). The IBA has the following information and qualifying populations of birds.
Name ............................... Marmara Islands Code................................. TR101 Location........................... Turkey, Balikesir Central coordinates.......... 27o 47.00' East, 40o 31.80' North IBA criteria...................... A3, A4i, A4ii, B1i, B1ii, B2 Area ................................. 102,700 ha Altitude ............................ 0 - 808m Year of IBA assessment .. 2001
Table 1. Populations of birds in Marmara Islands IBA that trigger the IBA criteria (BirdLife International 2011) Species Season Period Population estimate Yelkouan Shearwater Puffinus yelkouan non-breeding 2000 min 730 individuals European Shag Phalacrocorax aristotelis non-breeding 1996 min 150 individuals European Shag Phalacrocorax aristotelis breeding 1997 50-250 breeding pairs Eleonora's Falcon Falco eleonorae breeding 1978 18-21 breeding pairs Golden Eagle Aquila chrysaetos breeding 1997 1-2 breeding pairs Yellow-legged Gull Larus cachinnans non-breeding 1993 min 6,000 individuals Yellow-legged Gull Larus cachinnans breeding 1997 500-3,000 breeding
pairs Turkey is an accesion period to the European Union and the government has not declared candidate list for Nature 2000 sites. Moreover the government has not recognised the IBAs as candidate Nature 2000 sites.
Migratory Soaring Birds Migratory soaring birds are larger bodied birds, such as storks, raptors and pelicans, with broad and long wings that enable them to glide long distances. Soaring is a type of flight, where birds use rising hot air currents to gain height and then glide to the next thermal current to advance on their migratory route. By this they lower their needs of energy at a great extent and thus minimise their feeding requirement over huge areas of arid land that is relatively poor in preys and water. Migratory soaring birds depend on hot air currents that develop over land and therefore cannot fly directly over seas. When migrating between Europe and Africa, they have to fly around the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. They concentrate on bottleneck sites at the closest sea crossing between two continents. Migratory soaring birds have two separate flyways around the Mediterranean. More than 200.000 birds use the West Mediterranean flyway over Gibraltar, and more than 2.000.000 birds use the East Mediterranean flyway (Newton 2010). Table 2 and Figure 3.
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Figure 3. Major flyways of migratory soaring birds around the Mediterranean and Black Sea (from: Newton 2010) Table 2. Bird species and estimated number of birds using West and East Mediterranean flyways (Newton 2010). West Mediterranean (Gibraltar ) Flyway (Bernis 1975) Honey Buzzard (Pernis apivorus) 117.000Black Kite (Milvus migrans) 39.000 TOTAL 200.000
East Mediterranean Flyway (Shirihai et al 2000) White Stork (Ciconia ciconia) 530.000 Lesser Spotted Eagle (Aquila pomarina) 142.000 Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo) 466.000 Honey Buzzard (Pernis apivorus) 852.000 Kara Çaylak (Milvus migrans) 37.000 Levant Sparrowhawk (Accipiter brevipes) 60.000 Steppe Eagle (Aquila nipalensis) 75.000 Black Stork (Ciconia nigra) 17.000 White Pelican (Pelecanus onocrotalus) 66.000 TOTAL 2.000.000
Turkey is a major Palaearctic migration crossroads of soaring birds with corridors and bottlenecks in the NW, NW and S parts of the country (Bijlsma 1987). The Bosphorus (Istanbul) NW Turkey, Çoruh Valley (Artvin) in the northeast and Belen Pass (Hatay) in the south are the most important concentration areas (Shirihai et al. 2000). Figure 3.
In NW Turkey, Bosphorus is certainly the only known major bottleneck area. There are 10 published systematic counts of birds in autumn and three systematic counts from spring between 1937 and 1990 (Shirihai et al 2000). In the modern times two complete spring surveys (Öner et al 2010 and IKGT 2010) and a complete autumn survey (Milvus 2008) revealed the highest counts ever.
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However other flyways around the Sea of Marmara have been identified. Zalles and Bildstein (2000) mention Marmaraeğerlisi as an raptor migration site. Dochy 2006 and 2007 studied Dardanelles in spring. The only study conducted so far on Kapıdağ Peninsula is the graduate thesis of Tuncalı (2010).
Bosphorus, Istanbul
Kapıdağ PeninsulaDardanelles, Çanakkale
Bulgaria
Greece
Figure 4. Migration sites of migratory soaring birds in NW Turkey.
Migration over Kapıdağ Peninsula Kapıdağ Peninsula, as an alternative route to the Bosphorus, together with the island chain make of Marmara, Avşa and Paşalimanı islands, make the third shortest sea crossing after the Bosporus and Dardanelles. During spring 2008 Tansu Tuncalı studied the soaring migratory birds over Kapıdağ Peninsula. He counted a total of 56719 migratory soaring birds. The most common species was White Pelican 39734 (Pelecanus onocrotalus), followed by 8948 White Stork (Ciconia ciconia), 2515 Lesser Spotted Eagle (Aquila pomarina), 1726 Levant Sparrowhawk (Accipiter brevipes) and 1252 Black Stork (Ciconia nigra). His work also includes detailed studied on daily totals, flying hours and altitude. Tuncalı’s thesis is the first scientific work that revealed this second important migratory bottleneck area in NW Turkey, after the Bosphorus.
Species of Concern: White pelican (Pelecanus onocrotalus) The whole European population of 4100-5100 breeding pairs (Birdlife International 2004) is migratory and breeds mainly in Bulgaria and Romania. However (Leshem ve Yom Tov 1996) estimated the total number of white pelicans on the East Mediterranean Flyway to about 66.000 birds mostly from the census data of the birds migrating over Israel. This figure is much higher than the known breeding population of about 20.000 individuals. It is very probably than the great majority of the European breeding population, if not the whole, flies over the Kapıdağ Peninsula in spring. The migration routes and stopover sites of the European White Pelican’s are well known by their traditional staging areas and thanks to the satellite tracking projects such as Izhaki et al 2002. Some traditional staging areas in Turkey include Meriç (Efros) Delta, Lake Manyas, Lake Uluabat, Lake Eber, which hold more than 1000 staging birds at a time (Kılıç and Eken 2002). Moreover White Pelican is counted the a maximum count is 6203 birds at the migration bottleneck Belen pass (Sutherland Brooks 1981), however Can (2002) suggested that the majority of White Pelican may pass over Cape Akıncı, and not over Belen pass and
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Ornithological Report: Kapıdağ Windfarm January 2011
the total number of birds should be much higher and closer to the counts from Israel. The maximum count ever over the Bosphorus, Istanbul was realised during spring 2010 when a total of 279 birds were counted (IKGT 2010). This show that only few birds fly over the Bosphorus during spring and autumn migration. Tuncalı’s count of a total of nearly 40.000 birds corresponds more than the known European population. Counts from other migration sites confirm that the main bulk of the whole European population uses Kapıdağ Peninsula.
White Pelican migration over Kapıdağ Peninsula White Pelican can be considered as the most important species for Kapıdağ Peninsula. During spring 2008 a total of 39734 White Pelican has been counted between 15 March and 18 May. In the five-day period between 4-8 April a total of 14.695 birds were counted. Most birds fly over 09:30 and 12:30 hours. The number of birds increased with southern winds, and decreased with northern winds.
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Figure 5. The total number of migrating White Pelican over Kapıdağ Peninsula in pentats (five-day periods) during spring 2008. Tuncalı (2010) also noted the flight direction of migratory soaring birds from his study and prepared the following map. Here it can be seen that birds approach the peninsula from several direction in the south. But once on the peninsula they prefer to follow the ridge of the peninsula and the western slopes.
Figure 6. The flight direction of migratory soaring birds over Kapıdağ Peninsula during spring 2008.
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Ornithological Report: Kapıdağ Windfarm January 2011
Other Species of Migratory Soaring Birds The white stork is probably the second most important species observed during 2008. The white stork migration shows a peak in the pentat of 4-8 April, however the numbers increase after the second week of May.
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Figure 7. The total number of migrating White Stork over Kapıdağ Peninsula in pentats (five-day periods) during spring 2008.
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Ornithological Report: Kapıdağ Windfarm January 2011
Impact Assessment Effort in assessing impacts, and hence the target bird species for field survey, should be focussed on those species for which there is potential for an impact which might be judged significant and adverse. In most circumstances the target species should be limited to those protected species and other species of conservation concern which, as a result of their flight patterns or response behaviour, are likely to be subject to impact from wind farms. The most appropriate target species are the White Pelican and White Stork.
Collisian Risk The local flyways, or so called flight corridors on the Kapıdağ Peninsula are of cricital importance to determine the risk of collision. During the spring migration, Tuncalı (2010) has observed the birds from a single observation station and noted two main flight corridors, one on the south western slope of the peninsula, the other one over the ridges of the mountains. There is a 10 km distance between the position of the nearest turbine and the observation point. Therefore we do not know how the flight corridors continue and whether birds fly over the project site.
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Marmara Island
Avşa Island
Paşalimanı Island
Figure 8. Observation point, flight directions of the migratory soaring birds and the location of turbines in the Kapıdağ Peninsula. There are several possible flyways near the project site:
1. Birds follow the southwestern slopes of the peninsula fly straight over the sea towards Paşalimanı Island few kilometers south of the project site.
2. Birds follow the mountian ridges fly towards Paşalimanı Island and cross the airspace over the project site.
3. Birds follow the mountain ridges and cross to Marmara Island. 4. Birds coming fromfollow the northeastern slopes of the Kapıdağ Peninsula and follow
toMarmara Island.
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Ornithological Report: Kapıdağ Windfarm January 2011
[¬«1
¬«3¬«2¬«4
Known Flight Corridors
Possible Flight Corridors
Figure 9. Possible flyways of migratory soaring birds over Marmara Islands and Kapıdağ Peninsula. The flight altitude is the second important factor for determining the collision risk. Tuncalı did not collect detailed information on flight altitude during his survey, however he observed some White Pelicans flying very low over the water from island to island. The flight altitude of White Pelican during migration in Israel ranged between 200 and 1490 m, whereas the altitude of White Stork ranged between 240 and 1680 m above sea level. (Shamoun-Baranes et al. 2003). It is known that flight altitude changes during the course of time, such as birds fly higher during midday and lower in the morning. (Spaar et al 2000). However the sea breeze might be more influential in determining the flight altitude at Kapıdağ Peninsula. Certainly the flight altitude depends on local conditions and cannot be easily predicted. Scottish Natural Heritage (2000) prepared a Guidance Note for Windfarm and Birds to calculate collision risk, which is widely used. Here the number of birds flying through rotors can be estimated with some calculations of the total number of birds flying through the windfarm. However it is not easy to calculate how many birds might use the volume of airspace of the windfarm..
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Figure 10. The maximum and minimum height of the blade during rotation of turbines T1 - T14.
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Ornithological Report: Kapıdağ Windfarm January 2011
On the figure 11, you can see the profile of the longest series of turbines extending along the NW-SE axis a with of approximately 2300 m The lowest turbines are placed at 54 m (T01) and the the highest turbine at 230 m (T14). When adding 78 m of tower height and 40 m of blade length, we can calculate the minimum and maximum height of the volume swept by rotor. In total the maximum and minimum height of the airspace swept by all rotors is 92 and 349 m, respectively. Therefore any bird flying below 350 m in the dashed area are posed to collision risk.
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T17T16T15
T14T13T12T11
T09T08 T07T06T04T02
T01
Figure 11. The area of collision risk concern around the windfarm for the migratory soaring birds. In spring migration, relatively few birds are expected to fly below 350 m flight altitude around the project site. As most birds will approach from land, along the southwestern slope of the Kapıdağ Peninsula, they are expected to gain relatively good height with the uplifting wind and raising hot air currents before the sea crossing to Paşalimanı or Marmara Island. However in autumn birds might arrive from Paşalimanı and Marmara Island directly to the project site. After gliding over sea for a stretch between 2,5 km to 9 km., birds might arrive to northern and western shores of the project site at a very low flight altitude. Collision risk might be expected to be higher in autumn than in spring.
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Ornithological Report: Kapıdağ Windfarm January 2011
Impact on other Bird Species
Birds of Prey above Mountain Ridges Birds were in high risks at wind farms on mountain ridges in USA and Spain where many raptors are killed. In Germany high numbers of killed Red Kite (Milvus milvus) and White-tailed Eagles (Haliaeetus albicilla) were killed and caused a concern. (Hötker et al. 2004) Kapıdağ Perninsula is known to be the breeding area of 1-2 pairs of resident Golden Eagle (Kılıç and Eken 2004). Most golden eagles were observed over the mountain ridges, however they are known to hold a large breeding territory and hunt over wide stretches of land surface. The location of the windfarm is relatively far from their usual hunting area, however additional observation are needed.
Non-breeding Birds Wind farms have significant effect on local population of geese, ducks and waders. The area is situated far away from the wintering areas of geese, ducks and grassland waders. Moreover there are no wetlands in the project site. Most non breeding birds that form large numbers in the area are seabirds, such as Yellow-legged Gull, Black-headed Gull and Great Cormorant and therefore it does not pose any threat to non-breeding birds.
Migrant Songbirds at Night About 2,1 million landbirds migrate from Europe to Africa (Hahn et al 2009). Considering that bird distribute evenly across the Mediterranean and the Mediterranean have 4000 m width from east to west, over every single meter stretch in E-W direction 525 birds must fly during the whole migration season. Collision with night migrants is common with buildings, power lines, towers, bridges, windfarms and other man-made structures. The Kapıdağ Windfarm does not pose a particular threat for night migrating landbirds. However the Kapıdağ Windfarm, like any windfarm, should be monitored to control mortality rates.
Barriers to Movement of Birds Non-breeding birds are known to have daily movements between feeding, roosting and resting areas. Large birds, such as gulls, cranes, geese and ducks often take such daily movement. (Birdlife International 2005) The site is not located in the movement area of birds. The only threat may be the Yellow-legged Gull that might move between Islands and inland feeding areas, such as the rubbish damp of Bandırma city and chicken farms around Lake Manyas and the surrounding area. Research is needed to find out. However Yellow-legged Gull is not a species of conservation concern.
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Ornithological Report: Kapıdağ Windfarm January 2011
Possible Measures to Reduce Possible Impacts Among powerful methods to reduce the negative impacts on birds and bats of wind energy use are (Hötger et al. 2004):
• Choice of the right site for wind farms (avoidance of wetlands, woodlands, important sites for sensitive non-breeding birds and mountain ridges with high numbers of raptors and vultures),
• Measures to reduce the attractivity of wind farm sites for potential collision victims, • Configuration of turbines within wind farms (placement of turbines parallel to and not
across the main migration or flight directions of birds), • Construction of wind turbines: replacement of lattice towers, wire-cables and
overhead power lines.
Powerlines around the Windfarm Power transmission lines cause a high mortality risk particularly for migrant birds. In some cases the transmission lines create more problem for birds, than the wind turbines itself. By appropriate designing of the power transmission lines from the generator to the network, we can minimise the mortality risk. The Kapıdağ Windfarm will include underground cables to connect each turbine to the energy collector. The Switchgear will have a very short transmission line to the network, of about 300m parallel to an existing line. The power transmissions line is not expected to have any significant impact on bird populations.
Configuration of Turbines within Wind Farms The configuration of the turbines within a wind farm plays important role to minimise collision risk for moving birds. In Kapıdağ Peninsula birds are know to move from SE to NW (Tuncalı 2010) in spring, and expected to move from NW to SE during autumn. The turbines are positioned in NW and SW direction, thus parallel to the migration route and thus follow the suggestions of BirdLife Internationals Position Statement on Wind Farms and Birds (2005). This configuration will minimise any mortality of migrant birds. The tips of the blades will be painted red, and fitted with day and night lighting, thus reducing any chance of bird collision.
Shutdown Orders One of the measures to minimise the risk of windfarms to birds is to shut down some or all of the turbines in a windfarm (Scottish Natural Heritage 2000). Shutdown orders can be temporary or permanent. Temporary shut downs can be scheduled during certain weeks of the year and times of the day, as well as the turbines can be ordered to stop upon the observation of arriving birds at low flight altitude by a observer (manually) or with an automated system (bird radar). Several bird radars are commercially available. In case that there is a regular use of the air space between the turbines by the soaring migratory birds, the bird radar can be configured to detect any bird flying over the dashed area in Figure 11 below 350 m a.s.l. to temporarily give show down order.
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Ornithological Report: Kapıdağ Windfarm January 2011
During the research in 2008 by Tuncalı (2010) the most risky period of time is between 4-8 April between 09:30 and 10:30 hours when birds fly in large groups and low over land.
Research and Monitoring There is need for a detailed research on the migratory soaring birds, particularly on their passage times, flight altitude, use of the windfarm area, daily distribution of birds. Therefore a sprign and an autumn survey is suggested. A total of three weeks will be given. Direct observation from a single station in the project site will be made (Sutherland 1996) with 8x or 10x times binocular and 30x field scope with tripod.
• Species of concern: White Pelican and White Stork are the species of concern. The other species are expected to be covered during the surveys without adding another period of observation.
• Dates for spring survey: The peak of the spring migration of the White Pelican is between 25 March and 3 May. The peak of the White Stork is 9 May and 26 May. Therefore the complete period of 63 days between 25 March and 25 May should be monitored.
• Dates for autumn survey: In autumn there is no data from Kapıdağ, however data from Istanbul (Porter and Willis 1968) and Belen (Sutherland 1981) can be used to determine the survey period. The peak of the pelican passage is between 1 September and 1 October. The peak time for stork migration is between 10 August and 5 September. Therefore The survey should be conducted for 53 days between 10 Ağustos and 1 October.
• Total amount of days: It is required to visit the site regularly at least 50% of the time to understand the dynamics of the migration and to estimate the total number of birds, particularly during autumn.
• Observation station: The observation station is located at 350m a.s.l. at the coordinates UTM 35S 560397 4482341. This station allows the observer to estimate whether the birds is lower or higher than 350m and has an open view to the whole area from north to south and enables to locate birds over the sea.
• Observation hours: The survey will start at 09:00 and finish at 16:00 during spring and 09:00 and 18:00 during autumn.
Table 3. Example matrix of days to be visited during spring migration. The bold days are days of survey.
21 Mar 22 Mar 23 Mar 24 Mar 25 Mar 26 Mar 27 Mar28 Mar 29 Mar 30 Mar 31 Mar 1 Nis 2 Nis 3 Nis
4 Nis 5 Nis 6 Nis 7 Nis 8 Nis 9 Nis 10 Nis11 Nis 12 Nis 13 Nis 14 Nis 15 Nis 16 Nis 17 Nis18 Nis 19 Nis 20 Nis 21 Nis 22 Nis 23 Nis 24 Nis25 Nis 26 Nis 27 Nis 28 Nis 29 Nis 30 Nis 1 May2 May 3 May 4 May 5 May 6 May 7 May 8 May9 May 10 May 11 May 12 May 13 May 14 May 15 May
16 May 17 May 18 May 19 May 20 May 21 May 22 May23 May 24 May 25 May 26 May 27 May 28 May 29 May
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Ornithological Report: Kapıdağ Windfarm January 2011
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Figure 12. Observation station for the proposed survey and wind turbines. During the survey, in the mornings the study area will be surveyed on foot to look for feathers and carcass of dead birds below the turbines..
Expected Results The survey will provide information on:
• Which of the possible flyways over the project site are used by the migratory soaring birds.
• How many migratory soaring birds might use the airspace over the windfarm. • What is the expected amount of mortality rate among birds. • If there is a very high mortality rate, that can be address to one of several turbines,
which turbine has the highest risk of collision. • The relation of wind strengh, wind direction and bird passage. • If any shutdown order is necessary and if so, for which turbines, for which periods of
day and time. After the survey in spring and autumn the complete assessment of the windfarm regarding migratory soaring and other birds can be done.
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Ornithological Report: Kapıdağ Windfarm January 2011
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