Helicopters can cause a great deal of disturbance as they can linger longer and
if to close can actually cause an updraft that will damage nests, eggs and
young. There should have been flight restrictions for this colony already
established.
Many years ago I reviewed the proposed flight plan charts for B52H's flying out
of K.I. Sawyer AFB in the U.P. Michigan. These are low level flights (<500
feet) that came south of Sawyer and went over several islands on northern Green
Bay, and then zoomed west across northern Wisconsin and the Nicolet National
Forest, and then back north to U.P. Once the Air Force was warned about
colonial nesting birds on the islands they immediately altered their routes,
not so much for bird protection, but protection from bird airstrikes that would
have damaged the planes. Sawyer was closed in budget cuts of 1992-93. How
many birders are old enough to remember the blasting sonic booms coming off
Lake Michigan while watching shoreline birds?!! Sawyer also had several fighter
units and they were allowed to open them up over Lake Michigan making practice
runs. It has been much quieter since that ended. One must wonder how that
affected wintering waterfowl along the coast?
Tom Erdman, Green Bay
-----Original Message-----
From: wisbirdn-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:wisbirdn-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Peter Fissel
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2015 9:01 PM
To: Wisconsin Birding Network
Subject: [wisb] Fw: Birds disappear from Florida rookery
________________________________
From: paul_noeldner <paul_noeldner@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2015 4:40 AM
To: Peter Fissel
Subject: Birds disappear from Florida rookery
Hi Peter - please fwd to wisbirdnet thanks!
The sudden disappearance of thousands of nesting birds from a historic Florida
rookery at Cedar Key in early July has been in the news. Several possible
causes were cited but so far I have not seen any follow up other than that even
experts are mystified.
A bit of web research turned up European related research (pdf link below) that
documents that low flying aircraft can cause nesting bird stress as indicated
by elevated heart rates even if birds do not show visible signs of stress. More
concerning, the research appears to indicate that even a visit or two by low
flying helicopters in particular can cause large swarms of birds such as colony
nesting birds to flush and not return.
http://www.fai.org/component/phocadownload/category/1107-air-sports-and-wildlife?download=2924:lan-3-1-aircraft-effects-on-birds
A helicopter service recently started ferrying tourists to an island only 2
miles away from the Cedar Key rookery. Thousands of white birds in rookeries
is quite visible over the water. If someone asked the helicopter to take a
route over the rookery to get some pictures, that could have flushed the birds.
That in combination with a rainstorm at the time could have left eggs exposed
to weather, which could have contributed further to nest abandonment. I hope
this possibility is being followed up and that appropriate rules and distances
from rookeries for helicopters are in place and enforced.
A cautionary lesson for all of us is that the use of helicopters and
inexpensive drones (remotely operated small helicopters with cameras) to get
pictures of nesting birds should probably be left to researchers until we know
more about it and perhaps avoided entirely around rookeries.
Paul Noeldner, Maple Bluff
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