Wildlife UK Forum - Discuss the UK countryside and wildlife

it seems to be a common site on my local marshes to keep seeing swans dead under power lines, even if there is reflective discs on the cables they still hit them just so annoying that nothing can be done to prevent this

Oh that's so sad Muntjac - what a terrible thing to come across - I've never come across anything like that before, but I'm aware that it happens

yes skylark its sutch a waste but its not just swans ive found ducks,and waterrails as well laying dead under the power lines as well.

It's common to find Bald Eagles doing the same here in the US. It has something to do with the wingspan being just big enough to span the wires.

Kingfisher

That is such a tragedy, so sad to see such a beautiful bird meet such an untimely end. It happens frequently here too around Montrose Basin both with swans and geese too Sometimes a swan hitting the powerlines has caused powercuts too.

I once saw four mute swans hit the power lines somewhere in Norfolk. It was just dark and the sky lit up green. I think they managed to survive though fortunately.

I wasn't aware of this until fairly recently. It is so very sad, but wonder what the best solution might be to prevent it?

This is an interesting attempt at a solution:

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/200...Y03303.htm

Kingfisher

Hi Kingfisher, link works but there is just a pile of jibberish?


Thankfully, most of the powerlines around my area have been taken down. Though, there is a few eletrical posts with those terminal thingies on, you regulrly find dead birds at the foot of them. You find quite a lot of Owls and the occassional Buzzard.

Chris.

I have not had that happen before! The article was originally in a Japanese newspaper, in English. At any rate, this is the article:



Luminescent plates to help keep swans off power lines
The Yomiuri Shimbun

YAMAGATA--Tohoku Electric Power Co. has started testing luminescent plates it has developed to keep swans away from power lines and electricity pylons as a measure to protect the birds from accidents.

Mogamigawa Swan Park in Sakata, Yamagata Prefecture, is known as the nation's most popular stopover for swans, but accidents often occur nearby involving birds hitting power lines or crashing into pylons.

The Sendai-based company hopes that placing the plates on power lines and other equipment in or nearby the park will help make them more visible to swans. People active in promoting the protection of swans also hope the plates will help prevent accidents involving the birds.

The park and the area surrounding it have been the nation's most popular winter home for swans for the past 11 years, with about 10,000 swans flying in each year. This winter, the first flock of swans arrived in mid-October and by the end of November about 9,000 swans had arrived, according to a local volunteer swan-conservation group.

According to the group, about 20 swans are found dead near the pylons or under electric power cables in the vicinity of the park every winter. "As there are no tall buildings other than the pylons around the park, the birds are quite likely to hit the pylons or the power cables," said Keiji Ikariya, head of the group.

Over the past 20 years, Tohoku Electric Power has taken measures to prevent these accidents such as coloring the rings it attaches to power lines to stop the accumulation of snow. But these measures have not been effective. To make the pylons and cables more visible to the birds, the company has started using a material that accumulates light during the daytime and emits it at night so that the towers and cables will be luminescent in the dark.

The company has made about 1,000 of the oval plates, which are 10 centimeters by 4.5 centimeters in size, and attached them to the top of a 45-meter-high pylon, three kilometers from the park, at intervals of between 30 and 150 centimeters.

"I think the plates will be more visible to the swans as they have a large surface area," said the deputy chief of Tohoku Electric Power's technical center in the city. They also will check the durability and the luminescent performance of the plates, and consider ways to improve them.



Kingfisher