When you’re lost, ask someone who knows the way.

March 17, 2012 8:59 AM

Parahawking in Nepal: beautiful footage of paragliders working with raptors to find thermals.

“Parahawking is an activity that combines paragliding with falconry. Birds of prey are trained to fly with paragliders, guiding them to thermals for in-flight rewards and performing aerobatic manoeuvres.”

[previously]

posted by quin (11 comments total)

Thought running through the raptor's nugget, If I take one of these down I can eat for weeks!
posted by cjorgensen at 9:02 AM on March 17, 2012 [3 favorites]

My life is so boring.
posted by HumanComplex at 9:10 AM on March 17, 2012 [2 favorites]

Man, the landing runs they do at speed are really amazing. I mean, the calculations and instincts involved. Fantastic.
posted by lazaruslong at 9:53 AM on March 17, 2012

Those are Egyptian vultures
posted by devon at 9:55 AM on March 17, 2012

The phrase Zeppelin aircraft carrier keeps coming to mind...
posted by Chekhovian at 10:33 AM on March 17, 2012

If my cat had wings she would think this was the best thing ever.
posted by MuffinMan at 11:02 AM on March 17, 2012

Related
posted by atomicmedia at 11:15 AM on March 17, 2012

Absolutely beautiful. The soundtrack is gorgeous too, even though I can't believe they really found someone called Newton Faulkner for this project. That's double-barrelled perfection right there.
posted by maudlin at 12:41 PM on March 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

I thought of atomicmedia's link as soon as I watched this. I kept waiting for something to go horribly wrong in this video. When it didn't it as kind of anticlimactic. Still cool, but no man and bird plummeting to Earth in a shared moment of panic while the man's friends all laugh.
posted by cjorgensen at 1:30 PM on March 17, 2012

“Super-Fireball-Inter-Galactic-Para-hawking is an activity that combines paragliding with falconry with fireballs with space!"
posted by Fizz at 2:37 PM on March 17, 2012

@fizz

that sounds like a t-shirt i would wear ironically in the minutes before throwing myself in front of a bus
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 4:43 AM on March 18, 2012