A new study conducted at Vattenfall’s Aberdeen offshore wind farm found no confirmed bird collisions during 19 months of monitoring, suggesting seabirds largely avoid turbine blades…
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A new study conducted at Vattenfall’s Aberdeen offshore wind farm found no confirmed bird collisions during 19 months of monitoring, suggesting seabirds largely avoid turbine blades.
The research was carried out in collaboration with biodiversity technology company Spoor and analyzed video footage collected from one turbine between June 2023 and December 2024. The monitoring system captured about 95% of daylight hours and recorded 2,007 bird flight paths near the turbine.
Five flight paths were initially flagged as possible collisions, but further analysis found none involved actual impacts with the turbine. In most cases, birds were either flying well clear of the blades or displaying natural behaviors such as diving for food.
Researchers estimated that fewer than one collision would have occurred during the entire monitoring period.
The findings suggest that the wind farm is affecting seabirds far less than predicted in environmental assessments conducted before the project was built in 2018.
Previous radar, camera and GPS tracking studies at the Aberdeen site have also shown that seabirds typically avoid turbines by distances of about 100 to 200 meters, a
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