Hola
Anyone got any ideas where I can get a full cage for protection from some very angry landfill seagulls ?
I have the prop guards but not convinced they will stop the the flying rats from attacking …
Many thx
Mark
I have seen a lot of reports about using red reflective tape on the drone and that having some success.
I doubt a cage around the drone will help as gull’s and big birds will still see it as a target. How the reflective red tape works I have no idea but in general seagull’s are just B***** haha
Contact these
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Didn’t know these existed I’m guessing that you would may have to turn obstacle avoidance off as the sensors would pick up the cage around it ?
I tried it for awhile with some success, but it wasn’t 100% fool proof.
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It looks perfect if you’re flying inside a building and happen to have a minor collision with the interior. But also looks like something a bird could get itself potentially tangled up in if an aerial collision were to happen.
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Put some Flytron strobon Cree on your drone , they will blind the seagulls and problem solved lol , they blind me every time I turn them on so has to do the same to seagulls lol
Exactly what I thought, looks a greater risk of what you said rather than maybe just a close encounter ….
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When I was out last week to take photos of the Church in Blackpool for the rtf, a few gulls took great interest in my drone (considering where I live, surprisingly the first time it’s happened ), at first I bobbed strait up and down to shake them off , then I thought hell I’ll try and film them, as soon as I turned drone towards them and manoeuvred in their direction they buggered off.
Would also think that, although these cages are also available for smaller drones, they will push the MTOW over the threshold for those flying in the sub 250g class… thereby changing the rules that apply (and of course decrease battery time) - just something else to bear in mind
The OP is flying a Mavi 3, so the excess weight is academic in the legal-to-fly sense, but I would think that thing would take any DJI or Potensic sub-250g well over the limit. I would also think the the weight and wind resistance would be a struggle for drones like the Mavic Mini or Neo with only level 4 wind resistance.
As I know to my cost, gulls are dicks. My Mini 2SE was taken out by a group of about 8 or 9, and once the attack had begun there was really only going to be one outcome; consistent and constant harrying of the drone all the way down to the water, nothing I could do to save it! This was a month or so after the end of the nesting season, so they weren’t protecting nests or young. I’d done nothing that I was aware of to antagonise them; they sought me out and were the aggressors! Gulls are about twice the size of a mini drone.
I’m not a bird behavioural expert but I got the impression they were a group of juveniles, and, like human teenagers, were being generally antisocial and showing off to each other. Bastards.
I’m told that oystercatchers are even more aggressive, and will attack mob-handed by default, and they are fairly robust and hefty birds as well, so worth watching out for. If you need to escape you can outclimb most birds vertically in sport mode; certainly the larger ones need to circle to gain height.
The behaviour sounds like they see the drone as a bird of prey “hovering/circling “ and thus a threat. Btw you can recognise juvenile common gulls by their colouring. They’re brown, they don’t get their beautiful white plumage until the second year.
The ones in tourist locations are the worst. Protecting their supply of chips and other fast food waste, most probably.
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I’ve had a number of encounters with Oystercatchers, gulls don’t really bother me. The oyster gang are intelligent and not to be underestimated. They can fly at speed and will not hesitate to take on a drone regardless of size.
Agreed!
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Absolutely, I’ve not had a problem on the prom, South Shore (though lots around), however when I went into town (lots of food shops, chippy’s etc, they were at me straight away. One once broke my daughters glasses trying to take a chip out of her hand. Problem exacerbated by people discarding food in the street.
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Quite possible! I would reckon that a hovering drone might look a bit like a Kestrel to a nesting bird, so it could look like a hovering/circling raptor to gulls. They were white, so could not have been bred that year. It was late dusk and I didn’t see them coming until it was too late, but they really did give the impression of egging each other on!
Spent a long weekend in 2005 on Flat Holm island in the Bristol Channel (go if you get the chance, it’s a really interesting place), in May, which is why we got it cheap because this is gull-nesting season. The island is carpeted in chicken bones, the result of it’s population of lesser black-backeds raiding the fast-food outlets of Cardiff, Bristol, Barry, Weston SM and so on! The resident egg-laying chooks are understandably a bit stressed by all this!
The gulls are not really to blame, it is people who don’t dispose of takeaway food properly who cause it!
I’ve done quite a bit of coastal flying since ‘the incident’, and while there have always been gulls around, none of them have bothered me, but I’m obviously wary of the 'stards.
I was a bit nervous of the geese when I flew Caerphilly Castle recently as well; geese can be bad-tempered and territorial and there are a lot of them in the moat and on the greens that surround it. I wasn’t bothered at the prospect of one attacking the drone in flight, knowing that I can ascend much more rapidly than they can, but worried about the drone being attacked on the ground while taking off or landing. They ignored me, in the event!
I get above them, after they catch back up and you go up even higher a couple of times they get the hint and lose interest. Seems to work for me but I cant guarantee it will work every time.
Today the 3rd time I gained height they also stopped screetching at the drone and eachother. They must have been flabergasted 
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I was recently flying along with this chap for about 40 seconds who didn’t have a care in the world.
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Looks like a minigun on the port and a 50 cal on stbd so probably on its best behaviour.
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