Humans may not be yet, but unmanned aerial machines don鈥檛 seem to be ruffling feathers in the bird world. In fact, you can fly a drone within four meters of some birds and they鈥檒l barely even notice, according to by seabird ecologist David Gr茅millet published this week in Biology Letters.
The study鈥攃omprised of 204 trials conducted on Greater Flamingos and Common Greenshanks in the wild and Mallards in semi-captivity鈥攆ound that 80 percent of the time, birds approached by a Cyleone Phantom quadricopter didn鈥檛 react at all. The color of the contraption didn鈥檛 matter (researchers tested white, black and blue models), nor did speed. The results were especially surprising because all three species鈥攑articularly the flamingos and greenshanks鈥攕care easily, the researchers wrote.
There was one understandable exception in the results: Drones flying in from angles of 20 degrees, 30 degrees, or 60 degrees didn鈥檛 phase the birds, but dive-bombing in from a 90 degree angle鈥攍ike a predator might鈥攆reaked them out almost every time.
This is all exciting news for ornithologists, especially those who study bird populations in hard-to-reach places like mountains and wetlands. Gr茅millet and his team plan to study reactions from other species, like birds of prey鈥攚hich appear, , much more curious about drones鈥攁s well as corvids and larids.
These experiments may also eventually allow scientists to craft ethical guidelines on drone use with respect to birds, says Gr茅millet. (For more on the fledgling relationship between birds and drones, check out our primer on the matter.)