2004, ECON, Scroby Sands Offshore Wind Farm, Ornithological Monitoring

Description

This project concerns the monitoring of Little Terns during the construction phase of the Scroby Sands Offshore Windfarm. Monitoring was designed with the primary aim of assessing the impact of the proposed wind farm upon Little Terns. The work was divided into following areas: feeding studies, breeding colony studies, prey studies and bird strike studies. As during previous studies there was little breeding from Little Terns at North Denes this hampered the construction of a baseline. Although there was a reasonable amount of breeding at Winterton. In conclusion, changes in the nature of Scroby, particularly the emergence of a subsidiary sand bar through the wind farm may have increased the available foraging area and/or its quality to Little terns, although this may be balanced by the potential of increased risk as birds fly through the wind farm.