Thursday, March 27, 2014

A unique perspective on flight . . .


. . . courtesy of a pelican!  The orphaned young bird was rescued in Tanzania, and a miniature camera was attached above its beak to record its experiences as it learned to fly.  Here's the result.  (I recommend watching it in full-screen mode.)





That's definitely a different perspective on flight!  Here's the blog entry about it from Greystoke Mahale camp, which rescued the young bird and arranged everything that followed.

Peter

5 comments:

Old NFO said...

Great video, and it's too bad they didn't point the camera in the 'other' direction... :-)

Dan said...

Great video indeed. Thank you again.

FrankC said...

But if they didn't teach it how to catch fish it won't last very long.

Will said...

Interesting that the bird keeps his head oriented vertically while turning in flight. Motorcycle racers are taught that this helps keeping track of what the bike is doing, for better control. I wonder if this is for the same reason?

Anonymous said...

@Will: I noticed the same. In turns the bird banks his body and wings, but the line between his eyes remains parallel to the visible horizon.

I don't think human aviators do that.