In a previous thread, chigau suggested that some drone footage of deer might be interesting.
It’s actually really hard to see deer from high up; they blend in remarkably well. Also, deer in the country tend to not stand in areas where they are contrasted. So, at one point where the drone flies right over a small clump of them, you can only see the briefest flicker when one lifts her tail at the flying table-saw overhead.
I used the opportunity to do some experimenting with VideoStudio’s freeze-frame and picture overlays. The picture overlays are kind of a pain: you decide where the picture will go in the time-line, then snapshot the frame, load it into photoshop and make your annotations on a different layer, then throw the background away and import the edited frame-image as a chromakey overlay and knock the background to transparent. It’s not bad once you have the hang of it, but I’d been wanting to experiment for a while.
OK, most of that was fruitless. This morning I did a “dawn patrol” and kept an eye out for a better photo-op with deer. Usually I am looking for hunters, not deer. So I found a small family, and snuck up on them – if you can be said to “sneak” with a weird blinking flying thing that shrieks like a metal-cutting bandsaw.
Bam Bam!
I thought I’d drop down and highlight them against the sun and do some portraits. There’s only so close they’ll let you get, but they’re pretty OK with anything that doesn’t look human. They consider horses (and therefore a person on horseback) to be part of the club, so you can often ride a horse right up onto one. There was one memorable occasion when a baby was lying down in a field waiting for its mom and P-nut almost stepped on it. The baby exploded off in one direction and P-nut and I exploded off in the other. That was awkward since I didn’t have any idea what was going on. Ah, horses.
The deer’s breakfast was rudely interrupted. They didn’t run far, though – about 20 feet. I suspect they have hardware for detecting predatory intent (eyes locked, head orientation, speed, etc) and a drone doesn’t give any of the right cues.
By the way: in my head all deer are named “Fred” or “Bob”
Freduina or Bobbie.
Raucous Indignation@#1:
Freduina or Bobbie.
Well, “Fred” can be short for “Frederica” and “Bob” can be short for “Roberta.” I don’t try to gender deer even though the males have a big giveaway on their heads.
Thanks Marcus.
That was fun.
I think that Fred and Bob are both girls.
The youngling?
Boy.
When I went for a fotoshoot in spring I was nearly run over by a deer I wouldn’t have noticed if it hadn’t panicked.
That is so cool! It’s enough to make me wish I had one of those drone thingies. :-) It’s amazing how close those deer tolerated the drone. I’m imagining flying one with the raptors we have here… we have a lot.
Do you have the same naming style for your neighbors? Just call them all Bob, or Fred? Or is Bob’s name really Bob?
chigau@#3 and #4:
You’re welcome! I had fun.
I think that Fred and Bob are both girls.
The youngling?
Boy.
Frederica and Roberta and little Freddy. Works for me.
kestrel@#6:
It’s amazing how close those deer tolerated the drone. I’m imagining flying one with the raptors we have here… we have a lot.
I wonder if a human could pilot a drone well enough to keep up with them. Probably not. They might think it was weird. I had a hawk fly formation with a kite, once. I mean “kite on a string” style kite. I think the hawk was puzzled – or as puzzled as a hawk’s little brain lets it be. Not that deer are mighty intellectuals.
Do you have the same naming style for your neighbors? Just call them all Bob, or Fred? Or is Bob’s name really Bob?
No, Bob’s name is really Fred.
Just kidding. That was more than I could resist. Bob’s name is actually Bob. But I’ve been using Bob and Fred since high school – in my high school D&D game all orcs were variations of Bob and Fred. So you had “Fred one-ear” yelling at “One-eye’d Fred” while “Bob the Merciless” tried to get them to shut up. Well, it was funny for high schoolers.
“No, Bob’s name is really Fred.”
Made me LOL. Thanks for the chuckle.
Actually hawks are remarkably intelligent. https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/hawk.htm Since I raise (basically) prey animals – i.e. chickens – I have good reason to respect their intelligence. I’ve had friends (who have drones, obviously, as well as chickens) tell me that if you fly a drone ABOVE the hawk (or raptor, whatever you want to call them) and circle with them, they get nervous and will leave.
I remember seeing a PBS program about birds of prey, and they were using a golden eagle. It was able to remember where food was placed, even once it could not see it, and was able to correctly knock over the bucket they were using to hide the food and get it, even when they scrambled things around or the bird was taken away for a while. They did some other intelligence tests with it… it was actually pretty impressive. I have the utmost respect for them.
Still think it would be cool to get a drone’s eye view of what a hawk or eagle sees. Maybe you can try it some time? ***hopes***
kestrel@#9:
They did some other intelligence tests with it… it was actually pretty impressive. I have the utmost respect for them.
They’re very good at being birds, no question. I have a murder of crows that live in the back forest, and they’re a hoot – they police the whole area and chase away most of the other birds.
Usually I have a mated pair of North American Kites that live up on the north border of my open fields. They like to surf the flow-line of the crest, right where I have the standing stones. They just hover in the air like they are nailed there. I assume they are hunting mice so I cheer them on. But I don’t want to take sides.
On tonight’s hunter patrol I went high high up and circled some deer, then spun-dove in on them for a ways. They’re spooky right now because it’s hunting season. Normally I can do that and they just stand there going “whatszat?” I startled a red tailed hawk when I went over the tree where it was sittting, and it flew off, but from that altitude it doesn’t look like much – just a cross-shaped thing.
There’s a drone by Parrot called the ‘disco’ which is expanded polyester foam and has a big pusher blade – it’s apparently very quiet, has a huge flight-time, and great range. But for reasons I don’t understand, Parrot put a crappy camera in it. DJIs like mine have great cameras with very smooth gimbals so you get eery perfect flight video. The disco has a steady mounted front-looking camera only – apparently it feels a lot more like first person flying. I wish one of the drone makers would get with the program and do a twin camera drone so you could wear a VR headset and lean with your arms. The tech is almost there but it’d be prohibitively costly right now. In 5 years. The disco sounds so cool, though – apparently it’ll go up to 55mph and since it flies more like an airplane your experience is zooming above the ground rather than hovering in space.
Cool videos! I hope all of these beauties will survive the hunting season.
It’s actually really hard to see deer from high up; they blend in remarkably well.
In that dawn video deer leave huge shadows on the ground, so they are very noticeable.
Well, “Fred” can be short for “Frederica” and “Bob” can be short for “Roberta.” I don’t try to gender deer even though the males have a big giveaway on their heads.
I have a problem with humans attempting to ensure that every living being has a name that corresponds with their anatomical sex? What’s wrong with gender neutral names? Or having an anatomically female animal with a “male” name? In my family we have two female dogs and I call them Šiši and Retus. Retus is a male name is Latvian, Šiši is gender neutral. My mother calls these dogs Šīra and Reta (feminine names). Dogs themselves don’t seem to care one way or the other. They are also capable of remembering and recognizing two different names. I’m not even sure why I keep calling these female dogs in masculine versions of their names. Somehow it just sounds cooler.
Human names are just arbitrary sound sequences, yet people insist on everybody having a gender appropriate name. This really bothers me. Mostly because, unless I change my citizenship, I’m not legally allowed to have a non feminine name (unless I get some sex change surgeries). Damn, why do humans have to make it all so complicated?!
Pronouns and Mr./Ms. are an even more annoying issue. I occasionally get annoyed by being addressed as Ms. Skrebele, but at least that’s rare. It was a much worse pain in Germany. German for Ms. is “Frau” and the problem is that “Frau” means literally “a woman” and it gets used pretty much all the time. If in English people generally address me with just my name, then in German it was usually “Frau Skrebele”. Every time somebody said this I kept thinking, “I’m not a woman, damn it.” Yet there was no point arguing about this, especially with people whom I met rarely (it wouldn’t be fair, if I demanded that the person who delivers my mail remembered that I hate being called a woman). Besides, there are no gender neutral alternatives in German language anyway.
Vulcans.
What can you do?