Thursday, April 23, 2015

Windmills of the Mind?

Hello Dhaaarlings...

These large contraptions were spotted on our recent Seaside Sojourn...

It's a Wind Farm of course...
Built to satisfy the increasing demand for electricity to power the never ending growth of housing, business and electronic devices...


Some of the locals apparently kicked up such a "hoo har" that construction was delayed for many years as thousands and thousands of dollars went into lining the pockets of various lawyers...

Something to do with the environmental impact and the effects of building these structures on the habitat of local endangered wildlife namely... this little critter





I figure there isn't much hope for an endangered species if it's likely to go flying into something this big!

I'm quite sure that one of them flew directly into the windscreen of my car during the trip, it was the flash of orange and yellow feathers that caught my eye...

It distracted me from viewing the lovely windmill.

15 comments:

  1. Have I have told you your windsong stays on my mind?

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  2. A few years ago in the San Francisco area, they put up similar wind turbines to generate power. They were proud of their greenness and ecologicalness. Then they found out that endangered birds were being killed in the blades. I don't recall how that dilemma was solved.

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  3. birds sometimes fly into my windows; breaks my heart.
    mostly they seem to survive.

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  4. Hello Princess,

    Welcome back from your jolly at the seaside.

    The length and breadth of Europe is now dotted with these wind turbines. Indeed, some are even in the sea........

    It is upsetting to think of them as bird slicing machines rather than ecologically friendly power sources.

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  5. I saw pictures of Bondi Beach yesterday on the web, it seems to be a bit more in-land now ...

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  6. As Jane and Lance have said, many of Europe's wind farms are in the sea off various coastlines. In fact, Sheringham Shoal wind farm can be seen off the coast of Cromer (Sheringham is only a few miles west of Cromer), and further to the east is Scroby Sands wind farm (off the coast of Great Yarmouth). There are also a couple of turbines just outside the inland market town of Swaffham.
    I rather like them. They look so majestic and quite beautiful when they gleam in the sunlight. Not so much when they're smeared with finely diced birds, though...

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  7. Too bad they couldn't dress them up like giant scarecrows to scare the birds away....

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  8. I think they look nicer than electricity pylons. I am surrounded by turbines, but they are in the distance so I can appreciate their elegance... I am actually quite fascinated by them because of the strange visual perspective they give when seeing them from the road. I do worry about the birds... and I feel sorry for the people who live close to them and complain about the noise, which is supposed to be a low level hum and swoosh. Possibly hum, swoosh, splat when a bird is involved.

    Sx

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  9. Some say that wind turbines may slow down Earth's rotation and change weather patterns, apart from killing birds and bats --but apart from Batman, we don't care too much about bats, do we? --

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  10. they are rather stately, sweetpea. i do recall something about birds getting caught, but, i'm sure i could find the answer via google. ;) xoxoxox

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  11. Beautiful little bird, beautiful windmills, I read somewhere that they recently came up with a solution to keep the birds away but I can't remember how.

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  12. I've often thought (during our frequent hurricanes) how an enormous wind turbine (think bigger than the tallest building in the world) placed out in the ocean during a storm could generate enough power to run the whole city for a year. So a few birds get caught up in the damn things. So what? We have a rare beach mouse that has held up construction of multimillion dollar houses and condos for years. They finally just made little tunnels for them. Problem solved.

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  13. The birds will learn. Even birdbrains learn to survive. If nothing else, there will be enough noise to move them on. Of course that presumes that they'll have alternative habitats to move to.

    But what I can never seem to get an answer to (despite living on an island and by a river that's known for its tides) is, what happened to wave and tidal power?

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  14. Happy Star Wars Day!
    May the fourth be with you!

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