Bird safety at risk across offshore and onshore wind farm developments

Five leading conservation charities—RSPB Scotland, the Scottish Wildlife Trust, the National Trust for Scotland, the Marine Conservation Society, and the Scottish Seabird Centre—have written to First Minister John Swinney urging rejection of the Berwick Bank application, an offshore wind farm of 307 turbines which would be one of the largest in the world. They argue that the development, located in the Firth of Forth across an area four times the size of Edinburgh, would undermine Scotland’s efforts to protect its globally important bird populations.

SSE Renewables, the developer, has projected that more than 31,000 seabirds could be killed in collisions over the project’s 35-year lifespan. The highest predicted casualties include kittiwakes, gannets and herring gulls, many of which nest nearby at iconic sites like St Abb’s Head National Nature Reserve and Bass Rock.

RSPB Scotland director Anne McCall said: "I've never seen a development with so much potential damage." She added that the area is "one of the best places on earth for seabirds," many of which are already in serious decline.

The charities also point out that approval of high-impact sites like Berwick Bank could undermine progress being made by lower-impact wind developments, both onshore and offshore. They stress the need for a unified planning approach that weighs bird conservation equally with climate goals.

Berwick Bank reflects a broader problem: the siting and scale of wind farms—on land and at sea—can pose grave risks to birds if not carefully planned.

With the Berwick Bank application still under review, conservationists are urging ministers to pause and reassess how bird safety is incorporated into renewable energy planning across the board—warning that failing to do so risks turning one environmental solution into another ecological crisis.

Bird safety is an increasingly serious concern for all types of wind energy projects.

According to BBC Science Focus, between 10,000 and 100,000 birds are killed by turbine blade strikes annually in the UK. And according to NatureScot, there have been 71 recorded raptor deaths in Scotland resulting from collisions with onshore wind turbines. These fatalities include species such as golden eagles, ospreys, and peregrine falcons.

In a notable case in November last year, a tagged golden eagle named Sparky was killed by a wind turbine blade in Galloway. The bird was found 15 meters from a turbine at Windy Rig Wind Farm, with injuries consistent with a turbine strike.

Wind turbines, if poorly sited or inadequately assessed, whether on land or at sea, can lead to fatal collisions, habitat displacement, and disruption of breeding or foraging behavior. Bird safety must be treated as a critical priority in all wind energy projects by both decision makers and developers to prevent climate solutions from causing irreversible harm to already vulnerable bird populations and the ecosystems they support.