Flying with Birds

The Mexican state of Yucatan occupies the western part of the Yucatan Peninsula, which it shares with its neighboring state Quintana Roo.  Far from the beaches and resorts of Cancun and the Mayan Riviera, this is a rainforest country and it offers an extraordinary amount of biodiversity.  It's become one of the top eco-tourism destinations in Mexico.  Contributor Iñigui was in  Sisál, Yucatán when he happened upon a flock of flamingos.  The drone video he took from this encounter is truly memorable.  

Former Drone Video of the Week Finalist jesus_tr brings us this stunning drone video of a flock of pink and white flamingos flying over the İzmir Bird Paradise in western Turkey.  A national park, the bird sanctuary is located on the Çiğli Çamaltı Salt Marsh northwest of the city of İzmir.  Flamingos are just one of nearly 300 feathered species to be found here.  The wetlands of the Aegean region of Turkey play a vital role in the annual bird migrations between Europe and Africa.  The video was filmed with a DJI Mini 3 drone.  

With some of the world's most pristine wetlands, Latvia becomes a veritable sea of birds during certain months.  The Baltic republic becomes a key stopover point when they fly from north to south in the spring, and again when the pattern reverses itself in the fall.  It's an awesome sight, complementing the stunning natural beauty of this small nation.  Using a DJI Phantom 4 Pro drone, contributor Eaglewood Films created an amazing video of the seemingly endless stream of migratory birds.

In this mesmerizing video, contributor and pilot Alp Karagulle  managed to use a drone to film a rather large group of flamingoes on a glass-smooth body of water near Izmir, the third-largest city in Turkey (after Istanbul and Ankara) and the largest in its Aegean (western) Region.  Flamingoes are wading birds which are found natively around South America, Africa, and the Middle East.  The aerial footage of these graceful creatures flying over the reflective and glass-smooth water is truly epic! 

At Punta San Juan in southern Peru, a nature preserve has been established to study rare birds in an increasingly endangered environment.  The preserve is home to 4,500 species of birds, some of them quite rare, including the Humboldt Penguin.  Top content creator and pilot Danielgarate77 used a drone to visually capture the diversity of the bird life in this park.  The reserve is located on Peru's Pacific coastline, roughly equidistant from Peru's two largest cities, Lima and Arequipa.  

Pattaya is a medium-sized city on the east side of the Gulf of Thailand, not far from the border with Thailand's neighbor Cambodia.  It's the largest city in Chonburi, one of the 76 provinces which make up this Southeast Asian nation.  Nearby Mapracharn Lake has an enormous population of storks.  Contributor Danny Batchelor flew his DJI Phantom 4 drone over this lake, and was able to capture what appear to be thousands of storks flying over the lake.  Shot on a brilliant day, the storks are so numerous as to appear unreal.  

The title of this video says it all; this is definitely truth in advertising.  Contributor Stevenmconroy was flying his DJI Phantom 3 drone in Shell Beach, California when he encountered thousands and thousands (no exaggeration here) of Sooty Shearwater Birds which had migrated all the way from New Zealand.  He says he got as close as he dared to this massive whirwind of wings and beaks, and based on the video that was pretty close indeed!  

The Midwestern USA state of Minnesota (also known as the Land of 10,000 Lakes) is ground zero for epic bird migrations in and out of neighboring Canada to the north.  Contributor Tyler Mason was visiting a lake in the northern part of the state in November when he happened upon a group of trumpeter swans taking a break from their southward migration.  His drone footage of what appears to be hundreds of birds on the glass smooth water is spectacular. 

For cinematic drone footage of birds flying along a beautiful coastline, this video by contributor and drone pilot Skylight can't be beat.  He used a drone to capture a flock of seagulls on the coast of Portugal in the area of Alcobaca, which lies about midway down Portugal's Atlantic coastline in the Centro region of the country.  The video starts with an aerial shot of some spectacular rocks along the beach at sunset, and then picks up some stunning shots of the seagulls flying up the coast.

If you turn off the sound, you might think this video by contributor Earth Propeller was a music video for the 80's band A Flock of Seagulls (remember "I Ran"?).  Rather, these white birds flying off the coast of the Netherlands are the stars of this epic music video of the song "For L R P" by the Dutch band the Flying Dutchman.  The first half of the video is some absolutely mesmerizing drone footage of seagulls flapping away over the North Sea.  

Contributor Pascha created this amazing drone video of Sultan Reedy National Park in the middle of Turkey.  It's located in the Kayseri province, which is situated on the great Central Anatolian Plain which covers much of central Turkey.  Unusually, the marshes of the park are a combination of saltwater and freshwater varieties.  Home to many varieties of flora and fauna (notably including a large bird population), the area was turned into a national park by the Turkish government in 2006.  

Trying to follow birds while you're flying FPV is insanely difficult.  It's tough to even find them in your FPV goggles let alone try to track them long enough to capture some decent quality video.  JZFPV was flying his FPV quad in Florida when he came upon a group of pelicans.  As they start to scatter, he's able to keep up with them.  For about 20 seconds starting around :55 and then intermittently, you will see some of the best quad-to-bird FPV footage you'll ever see.

In this video by Drone 5, you'll get a bird's eye look at...birds!  Isla de la Gaviotas is a tiny island in the Rio de la Plata off the shore of Montevideo, Uruguay.  The Rio de la Plata is a gigantic river estuary formed by the Uruguay and Paranha Rivers.  Sitting just a half a kilometer from the mainland, it's a major bird site for birdwatching.  Amongst the bird species to be found on and over the island are the western cattle egret, the magnificent frigatebird, and roughly a dozen others.    

Contributor and drone pilot Photodiswork created this marvelous video of the bird life on one of the best known lakes in Chile.  Llanquihue Lake (Lago Llanquihue) is situated in the Los Logos region of the country, about 2/3 of the way down the length of Chile.  With a surface area of over 850 square km (around 330 square mi.), it's Chile's second largest lake, and it's deep - over 300 meters (over 1k ft.) at its deepest point.   In addition to its bird life, it offers some stunning views of the Andes Mountains.  

Contributor and pilot Thevmaker created this stunning drone video of a wetland area on the eastern shore of Cape Bon in Tunisia, North Africa.  The Cape extends out from the mainland in a northeasterly direction like a finger pointed at Sicily in Italy.  On its eastern side is the town of Korba, whose lagoons are home to some of the finest bird populations in the region.  In the video, you'll get an epic aerial view of the lagoons as well as a large flock of flamingos who depend on the wetland for survival.  

As every drone pilot knows, capturing video footage of flying birds is much easier said than done.  Simply getting them in the view is hard enough, and almost invariably either the drone or the bird (or both) refuses to cooperate.  That's why this video by contributor Murat Turna is so astounding.  He managed to film a huge flock of seagulls flying near Istanbul and created some of the coolest bird footage we've ever seen.  If you doubt the statement, check out the feeding action that starts at about the 4:00 mark(!)

Check out this stunning drone video from Angola, compliments of top contributor and pilot ArturCarvalho.  It was shot in a bay created by the Mussulo Peninsula, a sand spit that is about 30 km long (around 18 miles).  It's located just to the southwest of the national capital Luanda.  Shot with a DJI Mavic Pro 2 drone, the video shows off the almost surreal beauty of this part of the coast of southwestern Africa.  The proverbial "icing on the cake" is the footage of the flamingoes which inhabit the area.  

Contributor jesus_tr created this beautiful drone video from one of the most recognized landmarks in İzmir, Turkey's third-largest city and the largest in its Aegean region.  The tower is located in the city's Konak district, the core of its downtown zone.  Standing 25 meters (just over 80 ft.) tall, the tower was completed at the turn of the 20th century to commemorate the silver jubilee of the reigning Ottoman Emperor.  It was a gift from Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was pursuing a policy of alignment with Turkey.  

Contributor jesus_tr created this amazing drone video of the İzmir Bird Paradise, located on the Çiğli Çamaltı Salt Marsh northwest of the city of İzmir, Turkey.  It's a bird sanctuary that is home to nearly 300 feathered species, including Flamingos, Dalmatian Pelicans, Small White Herons, Grey Herons, Storks, Reed Harries, Kestrels, Eurasian Coots, House Swallows, Rural Swallows, Sparrows, Magpies, Rural Pipits, Kingfishers, Poyraz Birds, Eurasian Thick-knees, Silver Seagulls, Little Terns, and more.

This drone video from AirVuz contributor chill_side features some spectacular aerial views of the forests and lakes of Northwestern Russia.  Without question, the highlight of the video is at around the :05 mark, where he was able to aerially capture what appears to be an eagle flying right below the drone.  Somehow, he was able to keep the bird in the drone's field of camera vision long enough to create an absolutely epic ten second sequence before the raptor drifts off to the left and disappears from view.  

The great Italian city of Venice technically does not sit on the sea.  Rather, it's a series of islands on a lagoon which is created by the discharge of the Po and Piave Rivers and which is only thinly connected to the Adriatic Sea.  Extremely shallow in parts and with a constantly-changing mixture of seawater and freshwater, the lagoon plays an important role as a bird sanctuary.  In this drone video by Alberto Ardit, you'll get an aerial view of a flock of flamingoes cruising these famous waters.  

Check out this fantastic drone video of a flock of crows flying over the plains of Central Russia, compliments of AirVuz contributor and pilot Davidkaero.  The video opens with a top-down view of the snow-covered forest, somewhere on the vast Eastern European Plain.  Then the view shifts forward, where you'll see a vast flock of these birds flying through a mild snowstorm.  The footage does an excellent job of capturing the highly synchronized flying patterns of these feathered creatures as they make their way across the winter landscape.

If you are old enough to have been freaked out by Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 classic the Birds, you might want to avoid this video.  Otherwise, prepared to be amazed by Hightning McQueens's aerial view of a HUGE flock of Northern Gannett birds on Scotland's Bass Rock, a volcanic structure which lies in the southern side of the Firth of Forth, near its mouth on the North Sea. Bass Rock is the home to the world's largest concentration of the species, the largest sea birds in the North Atlantic.  

Contributor and drone pilot Aled Roberts was able to capture this amazing aerial footage of a pair of Peregrine Falcons flying near the city of Sydney, Australia.  The birds are distinguished by their blue-grey back, white underside, and black head.  Also known as the duck hawk, Peregrin Falcons are known as the fastest in the entire animal kingdom - the birds can hit speeds of up to 320 km/hour (about 200 mph) on dives.  Peregrines can be found almost everywhere on earth outside of the Polar regions.  

Top contributor hamed.razzaghi created this phenomenal drone video from one of the top bird-watching spots in Europe.  Lake Hornborga (Hornborgasjön) is located in Västergötland, a province of southwestern Sweden.  The lake (which dates to the last ice age) and its surroundings have become an important sanctuary for cranes who come through the area in their annual migrations.  The lakes's water level was reduced in the early 19th century to create cattle pastures, but was later restored.  

In this drone video, contributor and pilot sjalibrahim does a fabulous job of aerially filming a Kuwaiti phenomenon not known to many: its thriving bird population.  While this oil-rich country on the Persian Gulf is mostly desert, a small corner of the country is highly conducive to bird life.  That puts the country in the position of being home of some of the most important bird sanctuary areas in the entire Middle East.  Watch the video and you'll see a Kuwaiti wetlands you likely never knew existed.  

Prepare to be amazed by this incredible drone video of a giant flock of pink flamingoes near Mumbai, India, compliments of AirVuz contributor and pilot calvin nadar.  The video was shot during the Covid-19 "lockdown" in the first half of 2020, when social distancing measures forced most of India's human population indoors while allowing some of its human-avoiding wildlife to flourish.  That's what happened here in the area of Navi Mumbai, a planned city just south of central Mumbai in the western state of Maharashta.  

Check out this fascinating drone video from a large lake in a remote corner of Mongolia, compliments of contributor 187video.   Üüreg is a saline lake in the far western part of the country, not far from the Russian border.  Formed in a desert depression, the lake is home to a number of waterfowl and other bird species, as well as a wide range of other fauna and flora.  Roughly 12 mi. across at its widest (around 20 km), the lake covers a surface area of 92 square mi. (239 square km) with a maximum depth of just under 140 ft. (42 m).  

Check out this remarkable drone video taken over the Greek island of Naxos, compliments of AirVuz contributor and pilot ikoukouzis.  It was filmed flying over Naxos City, the main town on the largest of the Cyclades Islands in the western Aegean.  As he was cruising the waterfront of the town (which is located on the western side of the island), he encountered a flock of birds flying through the dusk skies here.  Impressively, he was able to create several different sequences showing the birds from different angles.  

Tracking birds with a drone is notoriously difficult. That's especially true with fast-flying raptors.  In this drone video by rezarafizadeh, you will see some amazing tracking shots of an eagle flying over a beautiful spot in northern Iran.  It was filmed in the Talesh (Talysh) Mountains, which are a sub-chain of the greater Alborz Mountains.  The Talesh run roughly parallel to the southwestern shore of the Caspian Sea, covering parts of Azerbaijan and the two Iranian provinces of Gilan and Ardabil.