DRONE STORIES - THE BIRDS

Today something really odd happened during a droneflight around the Westfront Memorial site in Nieuwpoort. The memorial site is located at the border of the controlled airspace of Ostend airport, and quite close to a military base. It's also in the middle of a helicopter training area and extended airspace of Koksijde. Therefore it's often restricted to fly there.

Today the circumstances were favorable and thus I flew my drone. Or at least tried..! Since a bird tried to attack my drone.

It is not the first time that a bird tried to attack my drone. A few weeks ago in Westende, at a construction site, some seagulls were quite interested in my drone and tried to play with it. I had to descend and wait for a few minutes.

Today an Oystercatcher [Scholekster] was screaming and tried to attack my drone. I doubt if there was a bird nest closeby, but landed my drone anyway and tried to fly about 100 meters further away. I directly flew to a height of about 80 meters for safety. I thought the problem was solved until the Oystercatcher came back after a few minutes, he tried to attack my drone at a height of 80 meters. Since he flew so fast, the only thing I could do was a maneuver sideways, while descending.

Even though the drone was still about fifty meters away, the bird must have known I controlled the drone and attacked me with bird poop. It fell straight on my phone and controller! Luckily I had some tissues, so I could clean my phone and take a picture.

Have you had any similar experiences with birds? Let me know!




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