Serious question, has anyone else had a drone get adopted by a hawk on a site survey?

We were mapping a 15-acre site in Boise and a red-tailed hawk decided our $2,500 quadcopter was its new best friend, circling and diving at it for a solid 20 minutes until the battery died and we had to do a sketchy manual landing in a gravel pile.

3 comments

3 Comments

matthew1665d ago

Honestly that sounds more like a territorial attack than an adoption. Red-tails are super defensive of their airspace, especially during nesting season. Your drone was probably seen as a big weird bird that needed to be chased off. I'd be worried about it actually striking the drone, those talons can do real damage.

nora_park5d ago

My buddy lost a whole rotor to a pissed off osprey in Tampa last spring. That bird had better aim than our client's project manager. Honestly, our little drones are just fancy, expensive stress balls for birds of prey.

the_xena4d ago

Maybe the birds think they're protecting us.