Abstract
The construction of the Rhyl Flats Offshore Wind Farm is planned to commence in March 2007.
As significant movements of birds through Rhyl Flats were not observed during survey work for the EIA, monitoring of collision was not automatically required. The need for such monitoring was to be triggered by:
· “the monitoring of avoidance/disturbance and the barrier effect shows that populations of conservation concern are attracted to the wind farm, or changes in distribution result in such populations being present in future years; and
· the birds’ behaviour (flight height) puts birds at risk from collision”.
The bird monitoring was also to be linked with the benthic monitoring where the two interacted.
The licence required the survey design to be developed by npower renewables and agreed with Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) before the monitoring commenced. The
specification produced contained five objectives, which has to be implemented for the duration of monitoring period