Yesterday I took my first training flights with my new drone over the Orchard. I was just exploring the basic moves, though longer term I'll be using the drone to document some of the maintenance work, such as pulling up blackthorn encroaching the grass area. I took a few shots of the surrounding area to check the quality of the footage. The drone is limited, by regulation to 120 metres above ground, though the landscape photo's I took were mostly at 30 - 40 metres above ground level.
This final picture is of the two bat boxes mounted in the large old Ash tree on the south boundary of the orchard plot. The boxes were given to us by the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust as few years ago to help provide homes for bats. It looks as though one of the boxes has urine stains under the entrance, so it may be that one or more bats have taken shelter in the box. It needs a ladder to reach the bat boxes, and I don't want to disturb any potential bat, but I was able to take the drone to within three metres and take a photo.
I had to be cautious when flying the drone because there was a buzzard flying in the locality not too far from me. They are known to attack drones in their airspace. The device is insured providing a replacement, but want to only use that for accidents rather than avoidable damage.
