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You do realize that you're linking to someone's blog, not an established news source? And that the author literally cites scientists that "poisoning from scavenging carcasses tainted by lead ammunition is likely responsible for many of the [bird] deaths", before wondering why "nobody" is concerned about windmills.

Well, here's the reason: As has been established repeatedly, the number of birds killed by windmills (on the order of half a million a year in the entire US) is completely dwarfed by, say, the number of birds killed by windows (on the order of one billion ), not to mention cars and cats.

That's not to say that people are not concerned with birds killed by wind mills, too. (And bats, porpoises and other animals.) The problem is fortunately entirely manageable by choosing appropriate locations for wind farms and other precautions. In particular, the construction (like all big construction) is a much bigger environmental issue than the actual operation of the windmills. E.g. here's Siemens Wind Power describing a solution to minimize noise pollution for endangered porpoise populations and other marine life during construction of off-shore wind farms.

(Then there's that other growing threat to birds: Climate change. Which is why the Massachusetts Audubon Society supported the Cape Wind project.)

They're not truly wild. They live in the managed ecosystems of our towns and villages.

Whilst feeding animal in the true wild is bad, feeding back garden birds that would otherwise fail to find sufficient food in bird-unfriendly gardens (lacking the correct plants and enough prey) is necessary to prevent further decline.

For example:
"House sparrow numbers were not monitored adequately before the mid-1970s. Since then, numbers in rural England have nearly halved while numbers in towns and cities have declined by 60 per cent. Because of these large population declines, the house sparrow is now red-listed as a species of high conservation concern."

https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-...

jees do the Nation Trust just play Angry Birds all day?

No, that would be the RSPB.

An eagle eating a pair of great tits ?

I'm a bit late to this thread, but anyway: multiple replies to your post, talk about electro-magnetic field frequencies. Multiple replies also talk about "I didn't hear anything while standing right next to the turbine". As far as I know, the concern is very loud, low-frequency sound, that can travel many kilometers in the ground and can' be heard by human ears. As such all those replies are completely off-topic.

Then there are replies that correctly identify the concern, but dismiss it as bogus. Well, I don't know. We are talking about exposing humans to almost constant loud low-frequency sounds (I don't think that anybody is trying to refute the existence of that) for years. In my opinion the topic hasn't been researched very well and so NIMBY steps in.

Finally there is one concern that I didn't see discussed: namely that the wind turbines are a threat to birds and bats

In some parts of the continent ( mostly southern Europe: Italy and Malta for sure but France too) it is common for people to shoot small birds for the sheer fun of shooting them. Anything that flies is shot and they don't care if it is edible, or rare, or a protected species. See here for details.

In the UK, shooting of birds is restricted to (a) Farmers shooting pest species (e.g. crows) and (b) rich people shooting specially-reared game birds (grouse, pheasant etc.) and (c) People with green wellies shooting ducks --- they are usually keen conservationists to ensure that there continue to be ducks to shoot and places to shoot them

This all makes it entirely plausible that typical garden birds in the UK see people as less of a threat than is the case on the continent. Mind you, if that sodding blackbird steals any more of my Victoria Plums I will be very tempted to blow him away.

Would large arrays of wind turbines potentially have any adverse affects on bird migrations, or even just birds in general?

In the UK, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds reviews applications for permission to build wind farms, and 93% of the time, they see no problems. They do object to 7% of the applications.

Wind power advocates often point out that more birds are killed by cats and by flying into windows (by several orders of magnitude) than by wind farms. Here's a comparison from How Stuff Works that shows wind farms killing tens of thousands of birds as compared with cars, windows, cats, and other bird risks killing tens or hundreds of millions.

In other news:

It is with great sadness that the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds report that the wild pigeon population is being totally decimated, yet strangely there is no evidence of the cause of the presumed deaths.

Wikipedia reports that the hit rate on a page about an interesting implementation of IP has increased by several orders of magnitude.

The IETF report that the RFC server for rfc1149 and rfc2549 have been pom-dotted into oblivion by millions of Britons determined to preserve their privacy.

The price of quality eggs of pure racing pigeon breeding stock has suddenly punctured the thousand pound barrier for the first time in history, resulting in the share value of the British Consolidated Pigeon Breeding Co. increasing by 500% per day for the last week.

Market analysts are dumbfounded.

I don't mean to nit-pic but magpies are crows. http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/families/crows.asp

Egg Collecting Laws

It has been illegal to take the eggs of most wild birds since the Wild Birds Protection Act 1954 and it is illegal to possess or control any wild birds' eggs taken since that time under the Wildlife and Countryside Act.

It is illegal to sell any wild bird's egg, irrespective of its age.

Possession of wild birds' eggs is an offence of strict liability so that anyone who chooses to be in possession of eggs is obliged to show, on a balance of probabilities, that their possession is lawful. The potential maximum fine for each wild bird's egg is £5,000 and/or six month's imprisonment.

There is a great deal of opposition to biofuels in Europe at present, not just because of the inefficiencies outlined in other comments, but because of the effect on biodiversity. See the RSPB's website for example. Ripping up rainforest to plant palm oil to create biofuels is ridiculous on so many levels, and this Swift stuff seems no better. The fact that it can grow on land not suitable for crops sets my alarm bells ringing. That land is often the last refuge for so many of the species that nature conservationists are worried about already.

Here's a quick primer on how birds regurgitate food to feed their young:

http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/expert/previous/regurgitate.asp

Hayabusa is Japanese for a very fast-flying bird, similar (identical?) to a Peregrine Falcon.

"Compare the number of bird deaths from those windfarms"

Given that (a) they're not fast-spinning (b) not on land, and (c) not in the flight-path for a certain type of rare bird, it's difficult to imagine why you're using data from the Altamont Pass turbines to evaluate this project?

As the RSPB say, "The available evidence suggests that appropriately positioned wind farms do not pose a significant hazard for birds"

British appear to be tit men, ...

How true. They have even created a number of web sites on the topic, such as this great tits field-guide reference page, complete with a nice image of a great tit.

Unfortunately, great-tits.org disappeared a year of so back. But others have taken its place to tell us all we want to know about tits in the UK.

While wind turbines do kill the occasional bird, this is no comparison to the estimated million birds killed in the uk each year by flying into cars and windows in the UK. Indeed the RSPB is, with a few exceptions, pro-wind