Monitoring reproduction in cliff-nesting vultures with drones could be a useful technique to collect otherwise hardly attainable data, identifying, for example, colored ringed birds and monitoring individual reproduction success through the years, or identifying breeding pairs in almost visually inaccessible parts of a cliff. Anyway drones could potentially represent a source of disturbance in a delicate period of vulture’s breeding cycle. My study bird is Gyps fulvus, Eurasian griffon vulture, and I will greatly appreciate receiving information not only on literature, but also - and especially - about tips and suggestions about how to reduce or eliminate potential sources of disturbance using drones to monitor nests, about reactions distance, or about particular susceptibility in some breeding phases, and even from unpublished experiences. Thank you very much for your support and answers!
Regards
Mario Posillico
Drones could be disturbing due to propeller sound and vibration, have you considered helium zeppelin made from a transparent material for low visibility carrying a high quality camera with tele photo lens, this would definitely have less propeller noise and still be somewhat remotely controlled.
Thanks Kazim, no I haven't considered it yet. It could be a solution to be explored. Thank you.
The noise of the propellers would definitely be a source of disturbance for birds. The idea of using a zeppelin is a good one, although they are hard to maneuver particularly in higher winds and they are quite slow compared to a drone. It would also take a very large zeppelin to carry a high-quality telephoto camera.
You could partially reduce noise by using different propellers from the ones provided by the manufacturer. More efficient propellers could reduce the sound they make, although you will always have some disturbing noise if you get too close to the birds. Maybe a combination of a quadcopter or hexacopter + better designed blades and a telephoto camera (look for a small one so you can reduce the size of the drone) could work. This would also be very dependant on your budget.
Maybe this site could give you a hint:
http://www.nwuav.com/uav-products/low-noise-propellers.html
Hope this helps! Good luck!
Here is a study:
https://blog.nature.org/science/profiles/justine-e-hausheer/
Drones could alter their general behaviour, the sound of propellers would draw the birds attention, and may feel threatened. There are chances for the birds to avoid/ abandon the nesting places for the repeated disturbances caused even at that heights are not protected/ safe. Instead cameras can be fixed for continuous monitoring remotly, the nest activity near the nesting locations in rock moulds among the clifs
Hi Elena, I did not yet, unfortunately. I recently found this for Israel, which is not exaclty the answer we were looking for, but anyway really interesting. It is a drone fed griffon chick after the adult female died. https://youtu.be/2OpfI2gjlqM enjoy.
Hello Mario
Did you manage to do drone flights to the nests of Griffon vulture? I would be interested to exchange experiences and information, as I have been using a drone for monitoring Egyptian vulture nests for the last 4-5 years, but my experience is only with Egyptian vultures.
The answer is not easy and simple I think. This must be studied with all the details. Disturbing and direct benefits for the record and indirect benefits for the bird must be analysed
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