Engineering initiative is for the birds!

Engineers from Western Power Distribution (WPD), the electricity distributor for the Midlands, have fitted £3,000 worth of glow-in-the-dark bird diverters to an overhead power line in Bardney, Lincolnshire, in a bid to protect swans.

Action has been taken after some birds, flying from daytime feeding areas to settlement ponds near a sugar beet factory where they roost for the evening, came into contact with the overhead line. Although bird diverters were already fitted to the line, the swans couldn’t see them at dusk or in the dark.

The new diverters are oblong disks which are suspended from the overhead line and are designed to spin in the wind. They have fluorescent red and yellow reflective material in the centre which provides daytime colour and a luminescent green patch on either side which can be seen at night.

Despite their unusual appearance, they work by causing birds, especially swans to veer upwards in flight, away from the overhead line.

This is the first time that glow-in-the-dark disks have been used in the Midlands. Expert ‘hot glove’ teams were able to fit the diverters to the overhead line while it was live, avoiding the need to interrupt customers’ supplies.

Technician Keith Tomlinson explained: “We have interspersed them with the standard diverters that were already up and we have also fitted them to a further four spans of overhead line.”