I enjoyed this project. Cumbria Wildlife Trust received permission to have a drone fly at Foulshaw Moss as long as it took place before there was any chance of the Ospreys arriving. The challenge, in the short period of time available, was to publicise and celebrate the return of the ospreys to Foulshaw Moss. This was to be done by creating a “bird’s eye view” film – imagining what returning to Foulshaw Moss might look like for one of the reserve’s ospreys. Visits to three different sites around the reserve, accompanied by the reserve warden gave me enough footage to play around with.
The stabilisation on the drone is very impressive – invariably keeping the horizon horizontal whatever the manoeuvre. Therefore I had to tilt my footage to try and give the impression of the osprey swooping, and then add sound effects and jiggle the footage to suggest a landing on the nest. I hope viewers will at least understand what I was trying to do, even if it isn’t done all that convincingly!
This film was on the home page of Cumbria Wildlife Trust’s website during the spring of 2018. The ospreys did return and have done every year since, which is a fantastic success story.