Update September 2013- There has been an ongoing debate over what effect wind turbines have on birds, specifically on eagles. On Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2013, the following story made headlines Wind farms killed 67 eagles in 5 years

The American Bird Conservancy which is  headquartered in Fauquier County, Va., appears to be one of the groups taking the lead on raising awareness on this issue and to help find ways to prevent eagles and other birds from being destroyed by wind turbines.

Sometimes we can pass by the same beautiful spot every day and tell ourselves,” I may be too busy to take that shot today, but I will get to it later, it will always be there.” I found out recently that is not always the case.

Last month we returned to one of our favorite vantage points above Deep Creek Lake, only to find a landscape that had been altered by several wind turbines.

The turbine project has been the subject of great controversy for several months, but I don’t think it really dawned on me what the full impact of those structures would be until I took the photo above. During our visit that September weekend, the comment was made to me ” You have taken photos of this spot (without the turbines) that can never be taken again.”

I recently delved into my files to find one of those now outdated images that I captured in November 2009 photo (top) taken from roughly the same spot, before the controversial turbines were built.

No matter what one’s opinion on wind power is, the difference between these views of the lake is stark and reminded me of a line from the old Joni Mitchell song, “Big Yellow Taxi,” that goes: “Don’t it always seem to go That you don’t know what you’ve got Till it’s gone.”

Related articles

• Wind Farms Are Deadly To Eagles, Study Says (webpronews.com)
• Study: Wind farms killed 67 eagles in 5 years (sfgate.com)
• Study: Wind farms killed 67 eagles in 5 years (fresnobee.com)
• Wing farms killing eagles (foxnews.com)