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The Californian desert has become a popular place to build solar energy plants because of the abundant space and, of course, the sun. However, the region also serves as one of the four major north-to-south trajectories for migratory birds: the
Pacific Flyway. So while it seems like an ideal locale, birds who fly over these structures face some new and unusual hazards."
When it comes to death by solar farm, birds typically die in one of two ways. In the first, the glimmering sheer of solar panels might trick birds into thinking they are actually part of a body of water. And so the birds, especially waterfowl in this scenario, dive towards the panels, looking for moisture and food, only to find themselves, bones broken, dying in the middle of the arid California sand.
Blunt force trauma aside, others feel the wrath of the harnessed sunlight. At the right (or really, wrong) angle, the potent radiation bouncing off solar mirror’s are enough to burn a bird’s fragile wings, abruptly sending the creature downward towards the ground and impending death. They’re like tragic avian Icaruses, except without an easily digestible moral lesson behind their fatal crashes.
Lex Berko Motherboard
