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Where offshore wind plans could overlap with Little Terns

Little Tern hovering above water while searching for prey
Research: Ecology, Behaviour

Offshore wind farms may be planned in coastal waters that breeding Little Terns (Sternula albifrons) use to find food. Researchers in Japan have developed a way to identify potential overlap even when the birdsโ€™ breeding colonies move between years.

The framework combines maps of suitable nesting habitat, estimates of how far the terns can forage from their colonies, and observations of flight behaviour around wind turbines. Because breeding terns forage from a colony, the distance they can travel to feed helps determine which marine areas may be used. Using median prey-energy values, the model estimated a maximum one-way foraging distance of 8.92 kilometres. The nesting-habitat analysis drew on 95 occupied grid cells, each 500 metres across, and identified bare land as the strongest positive predictor of nesting suitability.

The mapped potential feeding areas overlapped with offshore wind projects undergoing environmental impact assessment and with government-designated early planning areas. Three-dimensional flight observations indicated horizontal avoidance of turbines: fewer approaches were recorded 60โ€“140 metres from turbine towers, and no recorded flight path came within 70 metres of a tower. Most tracked flights occurred below the height swept by the turbine blades.

Combining these findings can help planners identify coastal areas where wind development deserves closer, site-specific investigation before construction. Overlap on a map indicates a possible conflict, not demonstrated harm from any individual wind project. The study did not calculate collision deaths or effects on Little Tern populations.

Sources and image credit

  1. Mapping Potential Conflict Zones Between Offshore Wind Development and Little Terns Across Japan: A New Spatial Screening Framework to Support Environmental Impact AssessmentOfficial university research release; gives the release date, context and key findings.
  2. A framework for screening potential conflicts between wind farm development and Little Tern โ€” a colony-shifting central-place-foraging seabird speciesAccessible journal abstract and bibliographic metadata supporting the study scope, findings and stated limitations. This later issue date is not treated as the study's first public date.

Image: ะ“ะพั€ะฑัƒะฝะพะฒะฐ ะœ.ะก. / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Little Tern hunting, representative picture; not from the Japan wind study. ยท CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Source

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