Monday, July 10, 2006
Eagle Eye View (Literally)
This is too cool! In the June/July issue of Europhotonics there is a brief article on research into the mechanisms of bird flight. Graham K. Taylor and Adrian Thomas of the Zoology Department of Oxford University (UK) are using miniature CMOS cameras and a motion measurement device mounted on the back of a trained steppe eagle to study the bird's movements and behavior in free flight! The cameras have built-in 2.4 GHz transmitters to send the video to a ground station. There is a news release that tells more as well as a brief Quicktime video clip (still frame above) that shows this literally eagle's-eye view as "Cossack" turns his head and then banks for the point where he is looking. Fascinating!