Effects of wind power plants (wpp) on ornithofauna in the region of activity (Kocaeli-Kandira)

Turkey is on the primary migration route of the Palearctic Biogeography region. There are bottlenecks and migration corridors in the northwest, northeast and south regions of the country. Thus, Turkey is on a significant and privileged position for wind power plants in terms of wind potential. Scientific studies are needed to measure the potential effects of WPPs on ornithofauna of the potential establishment areas in Turkey. The aim of this study is to find out the environmental effects of WPPs on ornithofauna regions. The study area is Gökdağ WPP area located in Kandıra District of Kocaeli Province, where 6 turbines and an operation site are located. The area is located entirely on a forest land. The platform areas opened for turbines cover an area of 113,000 m2 with underground cables, roads and business building. Field studies were visited in four different seasons between February 2019 and November 2019 (especially in the spring and autumn migration periods) to reveal the effects of WPPs on the area, ornithofauna and species in terms of population size, distribution patterns, reproductive potential, nutrition and migration characteristics. Line length and point counting methods were used to identify and count the species. As a result; 43 bird species belonging to 18 families from 7 ordo were determined in the study area. 29 of these species are resident, 8 are summer migrants, 4 are winter migrants and 2 are transit migrants. Aquila heliaca (Shah eagle) is a new record for Kocaeli province. There was a loss of habitat in the study area but it is not a significant loss due to the small number of turbines in a small facility. Regarding the effects of sound intensity and distance to WPPs on the behavior of birds,it is observed that WPPs had an effect on some bird species. However, it can be concluded that the Gökdağ WPP area does not have an important effect on the overall avifauna, since it does not affect most of the bird species. In addition, there is no dead bird record caused by the turbines in the WPP facility area.