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—Kay Armstrong, Clear Creek, Ontario (11/8/09)

I hear the call of killdeer outside, and it occurs to me that this isn’t the first time I’ve heard them at strange hours of the night. They seem especially agitated.  It strikes me that they, these birds that roost on the ground, are feeling what I’m feeling, perhaps to an even greater degree since they have direct contact with the ground.

The turbine vibrations have awakened them, as well, and they are flying around to escape them. In fact, these poor creatures have it even worse than I do because they have to keep flying and expend energy in order to be free of the vibrations that are disturbing what they had deemed home for the night.

Have I told you there are no frogs in my pond this year?  It takes 150 paces to circle my pond. It used to be with each step I could hear one jump into the water. I don’t believe they could see me coming, for all the bulrushes around the edges and with banks 5 to 20 feet high. They were able to detect my footsteps as I approached.

My guess is these vibrations are intolerable to them, as well. Either that or the vibrations have stopped the eggs from developing. But they’re not there anymore.

Not one.

It’s now past 3 AM, 4 hours later and the killdeer are still disturbed. If they don’t sleep now and have to sleep in the day, how do they find time to gather food?

This low-frequency/infrasound is making me dizzy, and the vibrations can be physically felt when I lie my head down. A couple of weeks ago, desperate for sleep, I actually went out to my truck at 4.30 AM, thinking the rubber tires would eliminate the vibrations.

This actually worked, although you could still hear the hum and I was still dizzy.

Tonight, the killdeer are up in the trees, calling, I think in an attempt to do the same thing.