A New Golden Age of Falconry
October 10, 2014 9:03 PM   Subscribe

 
Not sure if creatures sampled herein are just clueless, confused, or aggressive... or if animalia has finally had enough with homo sapiens and our poor behavioral showings these days.

Seriously, GoPro may have pushed them over the edge.
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:18 PM on October 10, 2014 [3 favorites]


Previously...

But then again, that's my reaction to Google glass and I can't say my feelings are any more rational than a hawk saying "WOAH THERE MOTHERFUCKER!" to the annoying buzzing thing in its general vicinity. Fight response, man. Better than running away and having my cowardice recorded for posterity.
posted by theweasel at 9:35 PM on October 10, 2014 [1 favorite]


A quadcopter is something I've always wanted but the Swainson's hawks that nest in my trees are pretty aggressive towards anything bigger than a quail. I've seen them dive bomb Red Tails, Harriers, Bald Eagles, Herons, Pelicans and one time watched them repeatedly strafe a flock of Black-Necked Stilts that had landed in my pasture sprinklers.
I don't think a quadcopter would last very long here.
posted by the_artificer at 9:37 PM on October 10, 2014 [2 favorites]


"The sky is ours, apes!"
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:17 PM on October 10, 2014 [5 favorites]


Oh, come on. I've seen Canadian geese attack nuns. Canadian geese will attack any damn thing in their general vicinity, they are vicious and stupid and definitely got the memo that they were a legally protected species and tht THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT if they repeatedly try to murder you. Geese attacking things definitely do not count for attack video compilations; it is not unusual behavior because they ALWAYS approach the world like a coked-up, steroid-addled teenaged athlete who hates his parents and has something to prove. It's their default state.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:26 PM on October 10, 2014 [36 favorites]


Not sure if creatures sampled herein are just clueless, confused, or aggressive...

They probably have major moral issues with drone-based surveillance.

They're also very pro-encryption.
posted by brundlefly at 10:40 PM on October 10, 2014 [8 favorites]


That's some serious dislike there Mr McGee.

Did a Canadian goose beat you up in High School?
posted by ambivalentic at 10:41 PM on October 10, 2014 [1 favorite]


I like all birds (They're dinosaurs!) and I think geese in particular are pretty neat.

However, they are definitely assholes.
posted by brundlefly at 10:53 PM on October 10, 2014 [2 favorites]


I think if I was a goose and had to deal with people I'd also be as big an asshole as possible.
posted by edgeways at 10:55 PM on October 10, 2014 [3 favorites]


Neat!
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:02 PM on October 10, 2014


These are fun.

However, I think the first bee guy should have maybe landed a little farther away. I didn't realize bees would fly so high or so far from the hive to swarm an apparent threat. I wonder what it is about quadcopters that triggers that behavior?
posted by ob1quixote at 1:01 AM on October 11, 2014


Quadcopter: Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Bees: What the fuck did you say?!
posted by brundlefly at 1:07 AM on October 11, 2014 [16 favorites]


The bee thing has potential, you could do a real-world version of those MMORPG videos where someone gets a huge monster to chase them and runs into the middle of a town.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:07 AM on October 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


...for extra amusement, draw the bees into the grounds of Nicholas Cage's mansion.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:10 AM on October 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


Canada geese. Not Canadian. Canadians tend to be polite and if one hit your flying camera toy-thing, they'd say "Sorry, eh?"

Canadians are far less likely to poop all over your lawns, parks and golf courses.
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 3:45 AM on October 11, 2014


Anyone notice how incredibly lame youtube comments have gotten since they're linked to g+ accounts? At least you could count on them to be hillariously stupid or offensive, now they're just like "Summary of video, check this out +friends!"
posted by Joe Chip at 4:12 AM on October 11, 2014


This hawk's friends are never going to hear the end of "that time I beat up a robot"
posted by liliillliil at 4:20 AM on October 11, 2014 [4 favorites]


For the reasons Eyebrows McGee gives above, I've always found the Clap Song one of the most misguided pieces of popular music. Encouraging a goose to drink wine is like pouring rage petrol onto an inferno of hate.
posted by howfar at 4:48 AM on October 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


Anyone notice how incredibly lame youtube comments have gotten since they're linked to g+ accounts? At least you could count on them to be hillariously stupid or offensive, now they're just like "Summary of video, check this out +friends!"

Thereby raising the collective IQ of the internet by at least 5 points? Yes, I've noticed.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:48 AM on October 11, 2014


THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT if they repeatedly try to murder you.

You could make friends with some swans. Swans do not tolerate geese. A few swans spend about a week at the lake near me every summer, and the geese disappear for the duration.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:57 AM on October 11, 2014


I have been waiting for the age of falconry for 2 years. I am crying and yet so joyful, releasing my most exotic snakes. I love them but the falcons must take them and fight them. Oh how I weep. But they must go, it is the way of things. This combat is a matter best settled by gods.

Also falcon gopros are basically the best thing possible to record so thank you.
posted by passerby at 5:12 AM on October 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


However, I think the first bee guy should have maybe landed a little farther away.

No kidding. At one point I thought he was going to bring the swarm down on top of him and his kid, and hilarity would not have ensued.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:36 AM on October 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


Good.

There's been some jackass buzzing the nearby lake with one of these drones lately.

There's no shortage of osprey, hawks, herons, or for that matter, ducks and geese there. These clips give me hope that perhaps one or more of them will challenge this noisy interloper.
 
posted by Herodios at 6:37 AM on October 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


+1 hating on geese but swans are the ur-dicks of the avian world. It's funny how me and little 7 year old boy often talk about what happens in the playground when we are at the duckpond.
posted by dmt at 6:42 AM on October 11, 2014


Freaking awesome.

Nothing out-assholes a raptor except Arctic jaegers.
posted by spitbull at 7:06 AM on October 11, 2014


Also, bald eagles can be even bigger assholes than redtail hawks.
posted by spitbull at 7:13 AM on October 11, 2014


ambivalentic: "That's some serious dislike there Mr McGee. Did a Canadian goose beat you up in High School?"

Um, obviously. They lived on the athletic fields, pooping them into unusability, and made food forays into the student parking lots looking for spilled garbage or dropped food, and routinely blocked in cars and attacked students. Sometimes they had to call a guy with a dog to clear the parking lot because the geese were definitely not afraid of cars, people, or very loud noises, and eventually all the students and school staff got too scared of them to try to shoo them, because GOOSE BITES HURT, YO.

Then they started congregating in their hundreds on the road leading TO the school, stopping traffic for half an hour, I swear just for spite. But the school decided "geese on the road" was an excused tardy because what else could you do about it? Eventually they flew south and WENT AWAY.

(Cops, scared of geese because of prior encounters with geese, trying to clear geese from the road because they've stopped traffic on a major artery, is a pretty amusing thing to watch.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:02 AM on October 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


A Canada goose once chased an eleventh grader all over the parking lot of my school and into a portable. That was a memorable morning in math class. Geese are bastards.

I'm also amazed at how high the bees are flying. Bumblebees Can Fly Higher Than Mount Everest, Scientists Find.
posted by quiet earth at 11:23 AM on October 11, 2014


Well, duh, mountains can't fly at all.
posted by Daily Alice at 11:27 AM on October 11, 2014 [6 favorites]


I checked online and although humans aren't legally allowed to hunt geese, it says nothing about bears.

Problem solved!
posted by ambivalentic at 12:26 PM on October 11, 2014


You could make friends with some swans.

Swans are total bad asses. I was behind a car that took one to the windshield (and yes, I'm a Greenaway fan but not making this up.) Everyone was rather confused about how things happened. All the people were fine and my ex goes over to check the Swan.

"I think it's dead. Help me get it off the road."

That Swan was so not dead. It woke up and thrashed us both and absolutely refused to get out of the road. I'm just under 6 feet and this thing, neck extended, is looking down on me as if the whole thing is my fault.

It was afternoon rush hour and people were piling up and honking behind the stopped cars in the right lane and and the Swan fight in the left lane and then animal control shows up. Guy comes out of the van with one of those sticks with the loop on the end and that didn't work at all. Swan batted him down like he was nothing and flew away.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 12:33 PM on October 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


I've been beaten up by swans in a park in Ireland because I didn't bring them lunch.
posted by Harald74 at 1:02 PM on October 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


Even in the videos here where it seems clear that the pilot wasn't trying to bait the animals, I'm still uneasy at how easily some of these awesome, and possibly even protected, creatures might be harmed.

Oh your hobby is baiting wild animals with a quadracopter? Mine just happens to be jamming quadracopter control frequencies. Kooky.
posted by johnnydummkopf at 1:44 PM on October 11, 2014


Even in the videos here where it seems clear that the pilot wasn't trying to bait the animals, I'm still uneasy at how easily some of these awesome, and possibly even protected, creatures might be harmed.

It seems like only the first drone pilot had the least bit of concern for the bird, his youtube description says:

As far as I could tell, the juvenile red-tailed hawk came out unscathed, and having defeated his prey, was happy to retreat. (As soon as he flew at me, I throttled down the props to try to minimize any harm to the bird.) The quadcopter came out unscathed as well. Funds generated through YouTube ads will be donated to the Massachusetts Audubon Society.

The birds are just protecting their territory, trying to scare away an intruder. Most of this seems innocent, the pilots did not realize they were intruding. But some of it is malicious mischief, like those kids harassing the geese and then laughing about it.
posted by charlie don't surf at 3:20 PM on October 11, 2014


I checked online and although humans aren't legally allowed to hunt geese, it says nothing about bears.

People legally hunt both geese and bears. In a fight between a bear and a goose, however, I might put money on the goose.
posted by Dip Flash at 11:40 PM on October 11, 2014


Quadcopter: Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Bees: What the fuck did you say?!

posted by brundlefly at 4:07 AM on October 11 [17 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]


Eponyfuckingperfect.
posted by The Bellman at 7:14 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


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