SEO-Birdlife: When a key stakeholder acts as environmental consultancy, The Monlora III wind farm (II)

 We now comment the findings of the pre-construction monitoring programme, as, in our opinion, it lacks completely of an appropriate assessment according to the Best practice international standards.

RESULTS OF THE STUDY: 

SEO-Birdlife just lists in a Table the number of contacts per species and the equivalent passing rate (birds /hr) = number of contacts /1,040. The first conclusion is really obvious: THE HIGHER PASSING RATES ARE FOR THE SPECIES WITH THE HIGHER NUMBER OF CONTACTS. Figure 1.

Figure 1. Extract of Table 5 in the report. List of species and passing rates (birds /hr). The most advanced of the analyses they made.

 This is the "most advanced" analyses SEO has performed with the data, calculating just % for every Table they provide. But if page 27 says there were 520 hours of monitoring, SOMETHING IS WRONG : i.e. 28 Hieraetus pennatus contacts divided by 1,040 give a passing rate of 0.025 birds per hour as the Figure 5 says. This division should be by 520 that is exactly the half of 1,040 so passing rates in the Table should be the double.

The second conclusion comes after splitting the number of contacts according to the flight directions, Figure 2 Shows also part of Table 6 in the report, just sorting the observations and their percentages. The heading includes "Meses" but it is unclear to what this refers to.  

Figure 2. Table 6 in the report showing the percentage of flights according to each direction for all species.

From this Table, they conclude 2: THE PRIMARY FLIGHT DIRECTIONS ARE SW-NE and NE-SW. Very informative if we consider that the most abundant bird recorded is the Common Crane (Grus grus) totaling 1,488 birds. We have to reckon the reader that this is the common pattern twice per year, as the C. crane winters in Extremadura SW Spain, returning in the end of the winter to Europe (300,000 cranes each year). There is no other conclusion about the flight, namely for the Endangered species that should be a subject of concern.

Finally, they shortlist the FLIGHT ALTITUDES PER SPECIES, again percentage of flights below, through the Rotor Area and above the Rotor, Figure 3. 

Figure 3. Table 7 in the report showing flying heights

Results are not surprising, less birds would fly below the rotor < through the rotor < above the rotor because  of a very simple reason the height intervals at which they measure the flying height follow the same trend so flights should be at least proportional. For any turbine the height from the ground to the bottom of the blades (A) is much smaller that the rotor diameter (B) and of course any height above the turbine (C), Figure 4. 

Figure4. Source: https://www.zmescience.com

SEO_Birdlife calculates the RISK OF THE WIND FARM BASED JUST IN THOSE SPECIES WITH > 10% OF FLIGHTS AT ROTOR SWEPT AREA.

Findings of the bird monitoring STOP here!!!! in the report. Really Amazing if being a renowned consultancy...