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Bird approaching drone in an aggressive way

Heijst

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Yesterday I did some practice with my MA in an empty parking lot near a burned down building.
I had only taken off and flew at a height of some 10-15 meters when a tropical mocking bird came to the drone and it seemed that the bird tried to attack the drone. So I quickly took the drone upwards to avoid the confrontation but that didn’t help much. After that I put the drone down to the ground.
A minute later the same scenario repeated and at that time I decided to stop flying. Looking for the mocking bird, I saw the bird sitting in the top of a tree. Next to the building. I suppose the mocking bird was trying to to protect a nest of something like that, for mocking birds are very common, even in my garden. A real confrontation could have hurt the bird and my drone and I didn’t want to take the chance which one would fall down first.
 
Well done because more often than not the bird would win (albeit possibly harmed). We encounter similar bird to drone incidents fairly often but notice them a lot more in the spring/summer during nesting season.
 
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Whenever a wind is blowing, there are multiple Hawks surfing the ridge on the mountain where I live and often fly. Many is the time I had to bring the drone down out of caution when they began to take an interest in the drone. Better safe than sorry. And I agree with you .... hurting one of those magnificent birds would be tragic.
 
Whenever a wind is blowing, there are multiple Hawks surfing the ridge on the mountain where I live and often fly. Many is the time I had to bring the drone down out of caution when they began to take an interest in the drone. Better safe than sorry. And I agree with you .... hurting one of those magnificent birds would be tragic.
75727
:D
 
I was flying on the beach in Bermuda last week about a mile east of Horseshoe Bay. I don't know what the birds were, sort of looked like gulls, a little slimmer with log black feathers coming out the back of them. Holy crap, they did not like my Mavic, I flew one battery and had to stop. You can see one at the 1:46 mark on this video. I was fine when flying at 200-300 ft, but when I got below 50ft it really freaked them out.....


 
I was flying on the beach in Bermuda last week about a mile east of Horseshoe Bay. I don't know what the birds were, sort of looked like gulls, a little slimmer with log black feathers coming out the back of them. Holy crap, they did not like my Mavic, I flew one battery and had to stop. You can see one at the 1:46 mark on this video. I was fine when flying at 200-300 ft, but when I got below 50ft it really freaked them out.....




Notice at the portion of the video you're over/close to land. I'd guess you were invading their privacy and looking to run you away LOL.
 
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Notice at the portion of the video you're over/close to land. I'd guess you were invading their privacy and looking to run you away LOL.

I think your pretty much right LOL. I have another 30 minutes of beach video to go thru. The way I was jumping around trying to avoid them I don't think I'll have much decent footage
 
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I had a group of small sparrows circling my MA yesterday when flying. I immediately brought it down to avoid any hurt birdies lol
 
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Yes, mocking birds can be very aggressive and territorial especial with their nest or young. They used to give my cat fits for just walking across the backyard.
 
I shot two houses his week. One had nesting blue jays that went after my M2P, the other had ravens that took an interest and ‘talked’ to it more than anything. But the jays were really unhappy with it.
 
Yesterday I did some practice with my MA in an empty parking lot near a burned down building.
I had only taken off and flew at a height of some 10-15 meters when a tropical mocking bird came to the drone and it seemed that the bird tried to attack the drone. So I quickly took the drone upwards to avoid the confrontation but that didn’t help much. After that I put the drone down to the ground.
A minute later the same scenario repeated and at that time I decided to stop flying. Looking for the mocking bird, I saw the bird sitting in the top of a tree. Next to the building. I suppose the mocking bird was trying to to protect a nest of something like that, for mocking birds are very common, even in my garden. A real confrontation could have hurt the bird and my drone and I didn’t want to take the chance which one would fall down first.
For some reason the birds will circle the MA but leave my M2 alone. Everytime I launch the MA at least 10 birds will follow and circle, so far none have gotten close enough to knock it down. This seems more common now that I have Master Air Screws installed, perhaps they feel the new sound is a mating call or something.
 
Flying in Portugal this week-drone (mav air) hassled by seagulls. Had to wash bird poop off the quad once landed. No drones or birds hurt ?
 
I think it is a problem with the pitchy sound of the original propellers. Maybe less with the Master AirScrews propellers. I had the same problem with some bees. They didn't like my MA sound.
 
I almost lost a yuneec Typhoon I had a few years back while trying to film a dam in Puerto Rico to sparrows, they can be mean territorial mofos
 
Blue jays, especially scrub jays, are unafraid of anything. Our cats (when we still had some) would unfortunately sometimes bring home a bird. However, the scrub jay would chase them into a corner, and they wanted nothing to do with it. The jays were just too aggressive.

Check out my most-viewed video, with over a million views, of a scrub jay attacking a snake:


I don't know if a jay has enough power to bring down a drone (probably not), but I have no doubt that it would try, especially if protecting a nest.

BTW, reading this thread I just had a thought: do you suppose that some of these unexplained drone losses, usually when the drone is too far away so the operator can't see it, are caused by bird attacks? I had a red-tailed hawk come after my drone two weeks ago, but the drone was close, I spotted the bird, and I brought the stick full down and landed. The bird was behind the drone, so if it had been half a mile away, and if the bird succeeded in bringing it down, the video on the controller would never show the attack.
 
The thing is a bird (not matter what size) can easily take down a drone, all it has to do is connect with one of the rotors and snap! breaks...down comes drone. Ever try to keep you drone aloft with 3 rotors? Not very likely...off course bigger birds like hawks of seagulls your screwed,
 
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