Lokkisaari - gull island

Lokkisaari - gull island

A friend asked me if I could help him and his fellow birders of Lokkisaari ry out and take some aerial images of a bird reserve they are maintaining. Of course, I was happy to help!

Those guys are doing an amazing job in maintaining a small island in lake Ahtiala in Lempäälä. Since about 13 years now, they clean the island and keep it habitable for the birds and it has developed into a real gull paradise. It’s even a nature reserve in the EU’s Natura 2000 program.

I was a bit nervous flying over water, especially, as I haven’t flown my IRIS that much yet and am not that familiar with it’s battery endurance, so we started with a quick pass, flying out, staying for 30 seconds and flying back - or so it was planned. Of course, having not flown in a while, I forgot the right sequence of commands in the mission planning and so she went out and came back, waited 30 seconds above the landing point and landed. But I had an idea about how much battery one pass will consume and sent her out again on the same route - with a corrected flight plan. From that pass, we got a few very nice photos. After that, I sent her out again for a video pass, but just arrived at the island, she decided to return immediately and shortly after, the battery failsafe kicked in and she landed safely at the starting point.

All in all, things went well, we got nice photos and might return there tomorrow with fresh batteries - and a better idea about the battery usage of the IRIS on that route.

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