Poland puts up windmills for clean power - but is it bad for the birds?

Every year, flocks of cranes, geese and swans fly to the Netherlands and Germany, using migration corridors along the Lower Notec river valley, which cuts across mid-western Poland. A wind power farm is planned for this valley. It's an eco-friendly scheme to generate clean power for the region. But ecologists are up in arms saying the massive structures are fatal for the migrating birds.

Poland puts up windmills for clean power - but is it bad for the birds?

Once tranquil, the Notec river valley will be in for a rude awakening by the sounds of turbine windmills.

250 windmills will be piercing the Pila county skyline in Western Poland by year's end. The wind turbines are 120 meters high and have a blade span 80 meters. These massive structures will be generating clean energy in the region, the largest undertaking of this kind in the country. But there's a snag. Thousands of migrating birds use the Notec river valley corridor during the night. Doctor Przemyslaw Chylarecki president of the national Association of the protection of Birds says they can easily get caught up in the windmills.

"If you have night migrating birds and if you have a light on top of the turbine, which is required by Polish law for safety purposes, this light could attract birds like moths to a candle. It is acting like a bird sink for migrating birds during the night-and they are simply actively coming to be killed swallowed by the rotor blades of the wind turbine"

So is an ecological war brewing in the wind, or is this a simple case of mismanagement? Environmentalist Jacek Engel from the Worldwide fund for Nature.

"Outside, the wind conditions are much better than inside the valley. Windmills are built to save the environment. On the other hand, the location in this area destroys the environment. This is a question of income. If we know that unemployment is very high, less than 20%, the local society doesn't care about birds, birds don't give them money."

Fortunately for bird lovers, the authorities of the Pila area have caved in to ecologist's pressure, deciding to scrap the project. But it looks like migrating birds will still need to negotiate their way through a hazardous maze along the Notec river further west.