A Red Tailed Hawk Knocks a Nosy Drone Out of the Air

Lori Dorn
September 17, 2020

Christopher R Schmidt, an eagle-eyed drone pilot, spotted a red-tailed hawk who was perching on a branch of a tree. The bird decided that he didn’t have much use for a nosy flying robot and took off, knocking the drone out of the sky.

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.

Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.