Hello all, just wondering, and have been for a while, since the first feathered friend aerial encounter, has anybody had any bird strikes on their beloved airborne machine , and the outcome.
Whether it be pesky pigeons (in herds of 20+!) or damn irritating gulls or crows. I’ve had a few near misses meself, but no collision.
The general course of action I take is, hover till said birds have flown past, then hike it up in the air to suss out my next move.
Here are a few:
More here.
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Birds hate bright lights…thats why full size aircraft have landing lights on in daytime …it scares birds away from its final runway approach. Not a lot of people know that 
Height is king - ever seen gulls mobbing a buzzard and giving it a hard time ?? Reason is that a buzzard is a thermal soarer so takes time to gain height - gulls can gain height much quicker which puts them in a position of power.
My first action when birds get inquisitive is to gain altitude which will give you some time to collect your thoughts and adjust your soiled underwear 
Yep, straight up as fast as you can, the birds can’t do that and will worship your drone as a god.
Birds, especially the gulls around my manor are nesting now so they are particularly aggressive looking after their young and food sources, your drone is seen as a threat to both.
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Nice one @PingSpike for those posts, sounds like a few of the encounters I’ve had. Nice one for the insight about the height manoeuvre, that’s basically what I’ve been doing, hike it up in the air once the little blighters have passed.
What I was interested to know though, was anybody with experience or know of a proper collision from a bird? Curious to who would come out on top, if it’s a mini 2,i suppose it’s brown bread, but in the case of A2S?
Or MP2?
Yah Iv had a couple while flying the Mavic mini, 1 while trying to get a shot of a forest.
I went straight up to do a revealing shot over the tops of the trees only to see this buddy great Buzzard swopping down on my poor little mini…
The other was a pack of Gulls whilst descending after doing some pic’s of Mousehole harbour…
Bloody 
me self
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Straight up really confuses them, they usually hang around where the drone was, screaming at nothing, before wandering off. They also don’t bother following it if I fly it elsewhere after a quick ascent.
Most birds don’t fly more that 10-20m up - it’s a waste of energy for them to go higher. Ones that use thermals to soar however do go a lot higher - I wonder if the minimum altitude for light aircraft is due to the lower birdstrike probability above a certain height.
Bright colours can also put them off - the standard grey drone can look like a competitor to them but one with orange stripes less so
You Tube, search “bird drone strike” lots of footage there.
I had 3 red kites interested in my mini 2 at the cherhill Whitehorse I did manage to get them in shot a few times but I just tried moving in the opposite direction like up and sideways
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Cheers for all the feedback, gratefully received as usual.
I’ll be sure to check out YouTube, which I hadn’t thought of before 
.
Only on probably my 3rd or 4th flight where Seagulls really didn’t like it and would keep circling it. Kept going up and returning to get my shot but they kept coming back so I gave up.
Haven’t had any issues since, even at beaches where, well, seagulls are a plenty, they tend to ignore it. I think potentially with my encounter there was a nest or young nearby.
We are entering nesting season so it’s worth taking into consideration.
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Not had this yet but as said on previous posts, your drone can go up very quickly, more so in sport mode. Birds have to circle to go up, so hopefully you’ll loose them.
@rovincam
Great picture!
Where is it?
Thank you. Near Bideford in Devon. Was actually wanting to take pix in the opposite direction!
Given the limits of the moving camera and shooting into the low sun, the birds came out well:
Very nice.
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Like that mate, proper snapshot off the cuff.