This poster presents a preliminary assessment of raptor behaviour in the vicinity of wind turbines using data from a detection–reaction system (DRS) deployed at a wind farm in south-eastern Spain (2021–2024). The study focuses on three species: red kite (Milvus milvus), black kite (Milvus migrans), and griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus). The dataset includes 1,995 DRS observations (1,225 red kites, 15 black kites, 715 griffon vultures) based on photos, videos, flight paths, distance-to-turbine and timestamps. Statistical analyses were performed in R (v4.3.3), comparing approach activity and minimum detection distances across wind speed categories (≤2 m/s vs >12 m/s). Approach activity was substantially higher during low wind conditions for M. milvus and G. fulvus (≈90% of observations at ≤2 m/s), while high-wind observations were less frequent. For M. milvus and G. fulvus, minimum detection distances were significantly smaller at >12 m/s (Wilcoxon rank-sum tests, p < 0.001), indicating closer approaches under strong wind conditions, potentially related to turbulence and reduced flight control. For M. migrans, no significant difference was detected, likely due to limited sample size. These findings provide behavioural insights relevant to wind-farm mitigation and conservation strategies, supporting collision-risk reduction and minimising habitat displacement, and highlight the need for larger samples—particularly for M. migrans—to strengthen inference Key words: wind energy; wind farm; raptors; bird–turbine collision; detection–reaction system (DRS); mitigation; Milvus milvus; Milvus migrans; Gyps fulvus; wind speed; turbine avoidance; wildlife monitoring
Kielanska et al. (Wed,) studied this question.