John Craven
Red kites have made a welcome return to our skies in recent years, after being almost wiped out through persecution more than a century ago. But as they glide majestically on their 1.75 metre wingspans, are they now facing a new threat of death from another quite recent addition to the British countryside: wind farms?
In comparison to the number of birds slayed by cats, wind turbines kill only a tiny fraction, but when it comes to rarer, slow-breeding species such as raptors, the toll is concerning. Statistics from Scotland, which has a large number of onshore wind farms, reveal that 33 raptors – including golden eagles, ospreys, peregrine falcons and hen harriers – died in collision with turbines from 2019 to 2022.
For red kites, though, it seems there is safety in numbers. In Wales, the only UK country where they did evade extinction, their numbers have bounced back to around 2,000 pairs. But while that was happening, demand for renewable energy also soared; Wales aims to add another 34 wind farms to its existing 44.
So, researchers from the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) were asked by the wind power industry to conduct an independent investigation into the extent to which turbines threaten the Welsh red kites. The BTO recently concluded that, as the birds were breeding so successfully, though the turbines might slow down the growth of the population, they were unlikely to result in an overall decline.
But there was a warning: areas with a high density of turbines could pose a threat to local numbers, especially if they are close to Special Protection Areas (SPAs) for kites. This includes Elenydd-Mallaen and its buffer zone in mid-Wales, where there are around 180 breeding pairs. Those findings could, I suppose, also be applied to the rest of the UK because the kite reintroduction project has been one of conservation’s great triumphs, with numbers in Britain now totalling more than 10,000.
“We know that red kites are capable of successfully flying between turbines that are spaced out,” says Rachel Taylor of BTO, who worked on the project. “Juveniles are more likely to hit turbines than adults because they are naive in their exploring and have yet to learn how to live with these hazards. What we don’t know is how difficult it is for kites to adapt to poor weather conditions that make manoeuvring more challenging.”
