As windfarms make their way relentlessly across the country – there were around 2400 at the last count with plans for another 400+ – the threat to our bird and bat population becomes larger. Although little work has been carried out in the UK, a six week study on two American farms recorded more than 4,500 bat fatalities from collisions with the turbines. As mentioned before in my blog, attempts at reducing bird collisions with wind turbines have typically involved making the turbine blades more conspicuous. However this clearly wouldn’t work for bats, where hearing is their primary sense. Anecdotal evidence, including that of bats foraging offshore in Sweden avoiding an area around Utgrunden lighthouse, where a powerful radar is in permanent operation, led Aberdeen University scientists Barry Nicholls and Paul Racey to investigate whether a small portable radar system would act as a repellent around windfarms. Experiments over the last two years have shown that the portable system works, with bats moving some 30m away. Further work now needs to be conducted by radar engineers working in conjunction with bat biologists, but in the end someone will need to pay for the implementation of the system…