Sixty million migratory birds cross the North Sea every year. Many of them reach the shores safely, however under particular weather conditions many of the migratory birds are attracted by the conventional lighting of oil and gas platforms.

They lose their orientation and often have to pay with their lives. The chances that these particular weather conditions occur during the birds’ migration are around 10 percent. The NAM (Dutch oil exploration and production company) discovered after years of research that the solution to this problem lies in the colour of the platform lighting.

Birds are distracted by the red parts of the colour spectrum but less by blue or green. A new type of lighting for oil platforms has been developed by Nam and Phillips. The lamps are green instead of orange/yellow, thus they do not distract the birds to such a great extent during their migration across the North Sea.

Years of research showed that the conventional lights greatly disturb the inner compass of the migratory birds. It is clear that blue light causes the least number of casualties but this light is unpleasant for people working on the platform. As a compromise, green lighting was selected. Currently as a pilot project, one of the platforms located on the coast of The Netherlands in the neighbourhood of the island of Vlieland is using the new lighting system. The first results of this pilot project are very promising according to NAM and Phillips.

Source: Niewsletter Vogelbescherming Nederland (BirdLife partner The Netherlands).