Cranes and Wind Turbines 

Cranes, of course, can be seen all along the coast and in towns and villages here in southern Spain. There are red ones, blue, yellow, and of course needless to say if I have to have one near me I’d go for a green one! Just take a drive along the Costa del Sol and you’ll know what I’m talking about. The cranes I want to talk about are the beautiful, very elegant large, grey birds that fly in flocks and pick the Costa de la Luz as their winter home.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of Common Cranes (Grus grus) migrate from Scandinavia, Germany and Poland to the Iberian peninsular and North Africa. It’s a long flight through Germany, France and to Spain with many stops along the way.

Cranes are communal birds and live, feed, breed and migrate together, calling out to each other in flight in the same way geese do. It’s one of my favourite sounds in late autumn over Cadiz province, when I hear their call and see the first groups arriving.

In this area, hundreds of Cranes arrive in October to winter in La Janda to escape the cold and darkness of the northern winter months. Other roosts can be found Morocco and along a good part of the North African coast. At this time of the year there is also a huge concentration of these birds on the rolling steppe and plains of Extremadura. Usually the birds find food on the rich stubble fields that held maize, cotton, rice and sunflowers, as well as taking frogs, mice, voles and other winter tit-bits.

Unfortunately the reduction of bird and small mammal populations is partly due to intensive farming practices. Very efficient harvest systems employed on many farms in most EU countries leave little spoil or waste and subsequently bird food for many is just not available.

The pressures created by Man: ie loss of habitat and their corresponding loss of food sources, naturally has an impact on wildlife. Take the new wind farm near Facinas for example. Apart from the obvious disturbance they create, they are really quite inefficient at generating electricity - only paying landowners a construction fee and annual rental agreement for the sighting of such ‘white elephants’. As far as bird collisions with windmills are concerned, I don’t accept that there are more numbers of fatalities created solely by wind turbines, I believe that electrical wires that span the countryside caused many more deaths in the past and continue to do so.

The number one source of visible bird deaths today could even be be the motorcar. Statistical information is perhaps easier with larger birds but it has been long thought that energy companies employ people to collect the bodies of any birds seen on the ground in the area of the turbines, thus making statistics as to the number of deaths caused, impossible to verify. High-tension electrical power-cables are a huge contributor to the deaths of our avian friends. They always have been. Just think about the vast numbers of wires that crisscross the countryside and these certainly cause many more deaths and injuries to birds. We only talk nowadays of cables being more deadly than wind turbines and it was opposition to the sighting of wind turbine farms that I believe emphasizes an old problem that had previously never been highlighted. You can't help wondering if motives for turbine opposition only come on in force where there are populated areas close by. Perhaps it's another case of "not in my back yard" and let me put on the lights when I want - I can afford it.

Because we seem to focus on larger birds, the sad impression seems to be that little birds are of no significant importance. Just think about the deaths of our smaller species that get killed crashing into glass windows and doors every day of the year. Take these numbers and the additional birds that are killed by domestic cats, add them together and you have totals in the hundreds of thousands if not over a million birds killed each year in the UK alone! The term Collateral Damage springs to mind. Say it often enough and we just accept it as a matter of fact.

Every man-made structure in the modern world has some bearing on wildlife and is quite simply unnatural to any living creature that is not a human.

Wires of such are quite simply very difficult for flying birds to see. Birds generally see the windmills and can certainly feel the pulling force of of the blades as they turn, but in any case why agree to site such large numbers of turbines right on one of the busiest bird migration routes on Earth? This is completely illogical and without thought or understanding on the part of local planners. What about a concerted effort to produce a viable system of deep-water turbines in the Strait of Gibraltar making use of the powerful and constant natural sea currents there? Would it be a solution to alternative and a friendlier, natural power-source? Why not mass use solar panels down this way? There are serious plans to start work soon on the next phase of these windmills all around Vejer de La Frontera, La Muela and the Conil area and quite clearly the opposition to more wind farms is understandable, so why not invest in new technology for sea waves and ocean current development. Wherever you see large masts with anemometers measuring wind speeds and direction anywhere in the surrounding countryside, you can guarantee this will be an area ear-marked for wind farm development.

La Janda is still one of the stepping-stones for bird migration, situated perfectly between the wetlands and estuaries of northern Morocco and the marshes at the Río Guadalquivir. La Janda was once an extensive ecological complex of marsh, lagoons, vast wetlands and reed-beds covering over 20 square kilometers. This is where migrating birds have always stopped off to feed and fatten up before continuing south or even over-winter in the warm climate from October to March. The area known as La Janda is at its lowest point 10 meters below sea-level and attempts to improve drainage by the creation of another illegal drainage tunnel under the N340 road, taking winter rain water off the agricultural area into the Rio Barbate, is another display of greed, selfishness and ecological vandalism, all too common in our world.

La Janda was once an area where local populations once lived, worked and hunted, not unlike the Marsh Arabs of Iraq. Incredible numbers and diversity of bird species bred there and it used to be a haven for Marsh Owls, Baillon’s Crakes, Water Rails, and where the now rare Crested Coots were commoner than their cousins the Common Coot.

La Janda is still a wonderful area to go birding. At this time of the year there are Marsh Harriers quartering the rice fields and Purple Swamphen feeding among the waterlogged edges and wetlands as well as flocks of Bramblings and Calandra Larks - not forgetting the graceful Common Cranes. Every month sees changes in bird species and numbers, with comings and goings of everything from eagles to waders and warblers to pratincoles. The area is vast and stretches from Benalup, right down to Facinas and is certainly worth visiting – if only to watch the juvenile Bonelli’s Eagles that will be there to winter with the Cranes very soon.

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click here for most of the past months to get an overview of what to expect with migration and weather for each month.

Jan 2006

Jan 2007

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Feb 2007

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April May & June 2007

May 2006

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June (B) 2006

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August 2006

September 2006

October 2006

November 2006

December 2006

December 2007 & January 2008                        

Summer 2008 - page 2

   Raptor Identification