Raptor Flight Activity and Collision Risk at a Kenyan Wind Farm, 2020-2024

Five years of observational data on raptor flight behavior at the Kipeto Wind Farm in southern Kenya, collected daily from 09:00–18:00 beginning January 2020. The dataset, authored by Dominic Kamau Kimani, records flight heights relative to a collision risk zone (30–180 m) for categories including vultures, falcons/kestrels, and Palaearctic migrants. It links flight activity and risk exposure to time of day, season, and weather variables like barometric pressure and wind speed.

Use Cases

• Modeling seasonal patterns in raptor collision risk based on flight height data and weather conditions.
• Comparing collision risk exposure between resident species and migratory raptors as described in the study.
• Analyzing the relationship between barometric pressure and vulture passage rates at collision risk height.
• Assessing diurnal activity patterns for different raptor categories, such as higher risk before 11:00 for most species.

Strengths

• Five years of daily observational data from 2020 to 2024 provides a substantial temporal scope.
• Includes specific quantitative findings, such as vultures accounting for 44% of sightings and only 3% of their flight time at collision risk height.
• Categorizes raptors into five distinct ecological groups (e.g., vultures, migrants) for comparative analysis.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The 1021.7 KB size suggests a limited scope, potentially containing summary statistics rather than raw observation records.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Direct observation by human monitors recording raptor flights and assigning them to height classes.

Time Range

January 2020 to approximately 2024, based on the five-year study period.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-06 09:56:24; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Kipeto Wind Farm, southern Kenya.