Burhinus oedicnemus

6.3.10 Stone Curlew ( Burhinus oedicnemus View in CoL )

Stone curlew is a qualifying interest feature of Allah Bair – Capidava SPA, Cheile Dobrogei SPA, Stepa Saraiu-Horea SPA, and Stepa Casimcea SPA. The populations for each are shown in Table 6.14 View Table 6.15 below.

No stone curlews were recorded during the breeding surveys in 2013 or during the VP surveys. However stone curlew are know to undertake nocturnal communting flights from nesting areas to suitable foraging areas which may not have been recorded by VP surveys.

The maximum recorded distances for nocturnal foraging flights for stone curlew are reported to be 3 km (16). This would mean that birds breeding at any of the SPAs apart from Allah Bair – Capadava are likely to be too far away to forage within the Crucea North Wind Farm (see Section 5 for distances between SPAs and Crucea North Wind Farm site). Allah Bair – Capidava SPA however lies 2 km to the south of Crucea North Wind Farm and stone curlew breeding close to the norther edge of the SPA could potentially forage within the Crucea North Wind Farm site. However the habitats present on the wind farm site (predominantly sunflower and maize fields) are sub-optimal foraging habitats for stone curlew which prefer steppe and spring sown crop fields. It is considered unlikely therefore that bird would forage on the wind farm site, rather than more optimal habitats within the SPA itself, at lower energetic cost.

As a result no effects on the integrity of any of the SPAs are predicted as a result of effects on stone curlew from habitat loss, collision mortality, disturbance or barrier effect.

Stone curlew have not been recorded from any of the project sits for which information has been reviewed, and it has been determined that it is very unlikely that they would forage within the Crucea North Wind Farm site because of the distance of the site from the nearest SPA for which they are a qualifying interest features, Allah-Bair Capidava SPA. Given the low likelihood that the species will occur at Crucea North, the likelihood of an affect occurring is considered to be so low that it will not contribute to an incombination effect.