Making correct choices about energy decisions is everyone’s responsibility. Global impacts, local impacts, wildlife impacts, even security issues are all at stake as we consider energy options. Here are some resources to help you make up your mind about wind energy. The American Bird Conservancy, www.abcbirds.org, has a number of resources to better understand this issue. The homepage links to wind energy and birds, and includes siting guidelines for making wind energy bird-friendly. Another important link on this site is their study, “Birdwatcher’s Guide to Global Warming” with state-specific impacts to birds from climate change and a joint report with the National Wildlife Federation on global climate change.

Although wind energy overseas has focused on offshore projects, the website of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds offers an interesting take on the issue from another perspective. Go to www.rspb.org.uk and link to windfarms/policy/windfarms/. The trade association for the wind industry, American Wind Energy Association, has a search button to find their guidance and other studies on wind and birds. Type in “birds” and see their public responses.

A coalition of huge environmental organizations— Greenpeace, World Wildlife Federation, and Friends of the Earth—banned together to support wind energy in a group called Yes2Wind. Their site, www.yes2wind.com openly advocates for the wind industry, “debunking” the “myths” of wind and birds.

The citizen’s group, Friends of the Allegheny Front, is working to bring awareness of wind issues to the people of West Virginia. Their website is www.friendsofthealleghenyfront.org. For guidance from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, including the government’s role in wind energy development and protecting birds, visit their website, www.fws.gov/r9dhcbfa/windenergy.htm.

Finally, if you’d like to keep up to date on the Synergics wind energy project on Backbone Mountain, keep an eye on the docket of the Maryland Public Service Commission, www.psc.state.md.us/psc/home.htm. Type in docket number “9008” for information on this permit application.

Citizen Science Really, Really Works!

Wind energy and citizen science can be perfect companions—just look to the Atlas of Breeding Birds for Maryland and the District of Columbia for proof.

This volunteer effort, which is the work of thousands of birders covering quadrangles in every single section of the state, is compiled every five years or so into one of the most comprehensive and largescale bird efforts ever.

What does the Breeding Bird Atlas have to say about the mourning warbler? Called one of the “rarest breeding birds in Maryland,” the bird’s location is limited solely to Garrett County, with the only confirmed (in this case, the appearance of fledgelings from nesting habitat) siting at the Roth Rock area in the Table Rock quadrant. (The entire state is divided into a grid of 239 quadrants). In the early 1950’s, Robbins estimated the bird’s breeding density in the second-growth forest of Garrett County’s far western corner to be around 10 males per 100 acres.