Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Plagued by problem birds? Call RobotFalcon!

A robotic bird of prey scares off nuisance flocks in a flash — and they don’t seem to get wise to the deception.
A view from the RobotFalcon’s underside during flight on a sunny day

The RobotFalcon device has two propellors and a paint job mimicking the peregrine falcon’s plumage. Credit: R. F. Storms et al./J. R. Soc. Interface (CC BY 4.0)

Birds that hit aeroplane windscreens or are sucked into jet engines can cause accidents and costly damage, so airfields work to keep birds — particularly flocking birds — away. Trained falcons are more effective than scarecrows, but are expensive to keep and need to rest between patrols.

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Nature 611, 12 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03386-0

References

  1. Storms, R. F. et al. J. R. Soc. Interface https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2022.0497 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links