Welcome DJI Spark Pilot!
Jump in and join our free Spark community today!
Sign up

Checking out a juvenile Osprey in his nest and almost crashed

Duke56

Member
Join
Jun 12, 2018
Messages
24
A bird watcher told me about a juvenile Osprey in his nest about 1,000 ft from my location. He had powerful binoculars to see the nest. I flew my Spark out to see the nest and the bird up close. The nest was atop a wooden tower with a shortwave antenna on it and nearby was a metal tower with power lines.

I used sport mode to cut the time to get to the nest but switched back to GPS mode once I got close so as to not startle the birds. There were 2 birds in the nest, you can see one up front and the other towards the back partially hidden. As I approach I start to move sideways to the right trying to keep the camera on the nest. I'm far enough away that the birds notice me but are not alarmed. As I'm moving right I lose track of the metal power line tower and at the 4:00 minute mark I hit the tower. It bounced my spark around and when it recovered I found myself inside the structure of the metal tower. Then I hit the tower again and now I'm back outside of the tower. This all happened so fast it's just a plain miracle my Spark didn't go down. Nothing I did as a pilot saved my Spark, just luck.

I take a minute to get my bearings and locate the nest once again. Take another look at the Osprey before heading back to base camp. Once I landed my Spark was undamaged. Checked all the props and the body and could find not one mark as a result of hitting that metal tower not once but twice.

Popped another battery in and flew three more times without incident.

Just call me lucky!

 
A fine example of why to have a spotter to watch the Spark as you manipulate the camera.

Glad you got to fly it back to the hanger :).
 
  • Like
Reactions: graywoulf
An adult Osprey, especially one with chicks can easily take out a drone, especially the smaller Spark. Adults get very aggressive during nesting. You may run up against the DNR as well, as they take a dim look at anything that may disturb wildlife.
 
An adult Osprey, especially one with chicks can easily take out a drone, especially the smaller Spark. Adults get very aggressive during nesting. You may run up against the DNR as well, as they take a dim look at anything that may disturb wildlife.
Yeah, I was wondering where the adults were. Must have been out fishing. I kept my distance nonetheless. I wasn't out there to mess with them.
 

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
14,593
Messages
118,799
Members
17,987
Latest member
csdisme