"There hasn’t been a sighting of a White-throated Needletail in the United Kingdom for 22 years, so nearly 80 birdwatchers flocked to Scotland this week to get a look, the Telegraph reported. But instead of enjoying the world’s fastest flying bird soaring, they watched it fly into the small blade of a wind turbine and die." http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/0...re-bird-then-watch-it-killed-by-wind-turbine/ And for the 'Anti-Foxers' .... "The fastest flying bird known to man apparently made a bad choice for its flight path, becoming wind kill by blades of a killer windmill." http://www.examiner.com/article/rare-white-throated-needletail-killed-by-windmill Man........I mean....... 'Environmentalism' strikes again!!
It would appear the bird is not particularly rare, it was simply in an area where it was seldom seen. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...sit-to-u-k-killed-as-dismayed-twitchers-watch One of only a handful of a type of small bird from Asia to have been spotted in the U.K. in the past two centuries was thrilling twitchers off the northwest coast of Scotland earlier this week. Then, tragedy struck. It flew into the blade of a wind turbine and was killed. Needless to say, watching the little white-throated needletail fall to its death dismayed those who went to the Outer Hebrides to see it. Dozens of twitchers (" for a person who will travel long distances to spot as many hard-to-find birds as possible") had rushed to the area Wednesday after hearing from and other spotters that the needletail was there. "It was really beautiful when it was flying around, graceful and with such speed," John Marchant of the British Trust for Ornithology . "To suddenly see it fly into a turbine and fall out the sky was terrible." "One minute it was flying in spectacular fashion," adds James Hanlon, a twitcher, in a story . "I followed it and then watched as it flew into one of the blades of the wind turbine and vanished. My heart jumped into my mouth. We dashed over to see if it had been killed and sadly found its body on the ground. It was heartbreaking." There were, , "cries of sorrow and anger from the assembled birders" when they found the bird "lying beneath the machine ... stone dead." He's of the twitchers gathering around the bird. , the white-throated needletail is thought to be the "world's fastest flying bird" — capable of hitting 105 mph. One hadn't been seen in the U.K. since 1991, the newspaper adds, and "a spokesman for Bird Guides said it was only the ninth recording in the U.K. since 1846." The the needletails breed "in Asia, from central and south-eastern Siberia and Mongolia, east to the Maritime Territories of Russia, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands and south to northern Japan and north-eastern China." They spend their non-breeding seasons "in Australasia, mainly in Australia, and occasionally in New Guinea and New Zealand, though it has been suggested that some may overwinter in parts of South-East Asia." David Campbell/YouTube The government adds that "there is no published estimate of the world population of the white-throated needletail; it is not considered globally threatened." How the bird that was killed this week got lost and ended up over Scotland isn't known, though several experts are quoted in reports as suggesting that it may have been blown there by bad weather. This bird's death has renewed talk in the U.K. about whether wind farms pose too much of a threat to some species. , Harry Huyton of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds writes that: "The death of any bird is tragic, but when it comes to climate change we are talking about extinctions, here in the UK and globally. One synthesis study in the journal Nature estimates that 15-37 per cent of species would be 'committed to extinction' by 2050 under a mid-range global warming scenario. "So, if you're mourning for the needletail that died this week, don't blindly lash out at wind power. Do something about it. Insulate your home, install some solar panels, drive less, buy wildlife-friendly food — because every single act we take to reduce our footprints will save lives." This isn't our first post about an animal's untimely death:
Hey they shut down a whole timber industry, killed towns, communities and left thousands unemployed because of an owl that was never endangered.
about 33,000 birds are killed by turbines every year in North america, many more are killed flying into buildings at night estimated as many as 1 billion, an estimated 1/2 billion are killed by the common house cat every year...put into proper perspective bird deaths due to wind turbines while regrettable are minimal.. http://climateandstuff.blogspot.ca/2013/06/bird-deaths-by-wind-turbines.html
Not sure I get this. You are implying that wind turbines are "environmentally friendly"? The only thing they are friendly toward is the bottom line of the giant corporations that are making billions from the proliferation of these things, so they can claim to be "green". When you look at the energy it takes to manufacture them and maintain them, and their small return of "free" power, they are spectacularly ineffective.
No, just the opposite. Seems you may have misinterpreted. I'm with you. The story (and link) I posted was yet another example of so-called 'environmentalists' destroying other environments (birds) in favor of their selected environmental cause.
tis the endtimes, fer shur and fer certain What people ignore or never learn is that all life on this planet is endangered. Man is a small percentage of life form in comparison to the total. I doubt that we'll be missed if the world woke up and all of man was gone................ or better yet: ......authorities are investigating the possibility of a terrorist plot to kill several more of these extinct species, Several squirrels with known ties to the countryside gang and an underground woodchuck are being held for questioning in connection with the murder of the white-throated needletail.......details at 11 best Eric Idle impersonation
Yes, species do become extinct but it seems so-called 'environmentalists' are ushering some extinctions to come to pass more quickly. Possible our own as well.
It's always funny when people who aren't environmentalists suddenly become one when it benefits their position.
You might like this article from Forbes on the topic of the viability of Wind Power. http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/12/21/why-its-the-end-of-the-line-for-wind-power/ "The end of the tax credit could very well mean the end of the wind industry." Turns out that without the 30% (that's right THIRTY percent) tax credit that was propping up this industry, it's really not profitable - once all the infrastructure and other hidden costs are taken into account.
It's not a big deal. White-throated needletails are common in their native environment--East Asia. It is just rare that they get as far away from home as England. The only people for which this is a tragedy are birders who would like to add this very rare migrant to their life lists.
