There may be another fix to keep birds from hitting the windmill blades.

At our recent bird club meeting (Tri-County MOS chapter), Paul 
Bystrak mentioned reading about putting magic marker ink on a window 
to keep birds from hitting it. The right kind of magic marker 
reflects light in the ultra-violet wavelength range, which birds can 
see easily. How about putting something that emits ultra-violet light 
on the wind mill blades so birds can see them better - especially at 
night. Ultra-violet emitting diodes may be something to try.

Charlie

At 01:32 AM 12/8/2007, you wrote:
>I've worked for an architecture firm in DC for many years now - one of the
>larger projects we've had in the hopper for quite a while is a massive wind
>farm/public building tax-credit scheme, on a very massive scale in South
>Dakota.  One of our managing architects brought this venture capital deal
>with him when he joined our firm.  I casually brought up the subject of
>turbines and migrating raptors, passerines and bats and he seemed genuinely
>surprised that the problem existed.  That's one of two reactions you will
>get from the wind energy folks.  The other reaction is a dismissive rebuttal
>of the problem.
>
>Sadly, missing from these discourses is a very simple "fix": altering the
>design of the turbine blades to produce a sound frequency that birds (and
>bats) avoid has proven to be an effective solution.  Not 100%, but it has
>been proven in trials to significantly reduce the number of animals killed
>in collisions with wind turbine farms.