Hi Eric,
Good to hear some first hand experience. If the noise of model chopper did not
cause much of a problem, small quadricopters, such as being offered by Apple
http://store.apple.com/au/product/H8859/parrot-ar-drone-2-0
should no noisier, if not less. The only drawback of the Parrot drone and
similar is the range. The Parrot's is only 50m. Could be a handy for nest
inspections and such though. It is still early days for the technology,
interesting to see what turns up in the next year or so.
Cheers,
Carl Clifford
On 16/10/2012, at 1:20 PM, <> wrote:
> Hi Carl,
>
> I have flown an electric remote controlled helicopter near terns and waders
> and they watch it with the same kind of look they give a distant raptor - ie
> head cocked slightly to the side. When flown up beside a kestrel, its flight
> distance was about 5 m - that is, the kestrel hardly seemd concerned, and
> common passerines that sit on wires like peewees don't seem to care about
> being overflown by it.
>
> I think RC helicopters would be the best way of getting very accurate counts
> of shorebirds. You wouldn't need to get above them, and disturbance would be
> much less than approaching a mob of birds from a distance. I have not yet
> used our machine "in anger" for large shorebird counts, but I wish I had it
> in a previous life doing counts for an airport. The counts would have been
> significantly more accurate.
>
> I very much doubt a raptor or any other bird would accidentally run into it,
> though I have had woodswallows get quite close (2-3 m) in an obvious
> attacking-type behaviour similar to what they might do with a raptor. Their
> calls were woodswallow alarm calls, but they never connected, suggesting to
> me that they don't find the helicopter as threatening as a goshawk, corvid,
> falcon etc, or perhaps they could clearly see the turning blades and just
> wanted to avoid something so unfamiliar. The machine I use would probably
> seriously injure or kill a small bird, but you can put your hand into its
> rotors and usually get nothing more than a "papercut". The machine I use is
> electric, so noise is pretty much limited to rotor noise.
>
> More powerful machines, especially those with combustion engines, could cause
> a lot more damage in the case of rotor strikes, and are obviously much
> noisier.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Eric Vanderduys
> Technical Officer
> CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences
> Phone: +61 7 4753 8529 | Fax: +61 7 4753 8600 | Mobile: 0437 330 961
> | www.csiro.au |
> www.csiro.au/people/Eric.Vanderduys.html
> Address: CSIRO, PMB PO, Aitkenvale, Qld 4814. Deliveries: CSIRO, ATSIP, Bld
> 145 James Cook Drive, James Cook University Douglas Campus, Townsville Qld
> 4814, AUSTRALIA
>
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> -----Original Message-----
> From:
> On Behalf Of Chris Sanderson
> Sent: Tuesday, 16 October 2012 11:37 AM
> To: Carl Clifford
> Cc: Birding Aus
> Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] Drones & birding
>
> Hi Carl,
>
> No direct experience, but I know from disturbance monitoring for shorebirds
> that I've done in the past that shorebirds hate helicopters. Pretty sure
> even a "toy" one woud cause large amounts of disturbance. Also I've been
> told that bird strikes on remote control aircraft can be fatal to birds like
> eagles, so it's possibly also dangerous for the birds. These are gut
> reactions though, not based on any actual observations of this tech in use.
>
> Cheers,
> Chris
>
> On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 12:20 PM, Carl Clifford
> <>wrote:
>
>> Dear B-A,
>>
>> Has anyone on the list had any experience using camera equipped
>> quadricopter style drones for birding? They seem to have the potential
>> to be a useful tool for observing waders and the like.
>>
>> I would be interested in hearing of anyones experiences.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Carl Clifford
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