Drone Falcon Offers Hope to Strawberry Farmers Battling Lorikeets

A drone mimicking a peregrine falcon is giving hope to farmers losing hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of strawberries to ravenous rainbow lorikeets.

The robotic raptor has the same size, silhouette and flight patterns of the world's fastest bird.

It flaps flexible polyfoam wings during 15-minute windows on rechargeable batteries.

Launched with an overarm throw, the RoBird weighs less than a kilogram and was designed to protect food crops without harming native wildlife.

"We're only hazing or going after the birds that the farmers know eat the crops, in this case rainbow lorikeets and cockatoos," drone pilot Harry Lagastes said.

Queensland strawberry growers gathered at TSL Family Farms, an hour's drive north-west of Brisbane, to learn more about a three-year joint trial with Canadian-based AERIUM Analytics, funded by Hort Innovation's Frontiers project.

AERIUM Analytics chief growth officer Jill Viccars said flying and fixed-wing versions of the RoBird had been successfully used overseas to deter birds at airports and mining sites.

Its horticultural trials began last year in Victoria and South Australia, focusing on stone fruit, apples and almonds.

Crop damage reduced by 89pc

"The almond trial ran for four and a half to five months, and we did a treated versus untreated site," Ms Viccars said.

"We saw an 89 per cent reduction in fruit damage, so we were obviously very excited about that.

"Our second year of operations in almonds is going to be looking at how we scale [expand]."

$200K in crop loss

TSL Family Farms co-owner Laura Wells was eager to host RoBird's first Queensland trial.

Her family moved from growing strawberries in the ground to tabletop production to reduce backbreaking labour, soil-borne disease, weed growth and the need for agricultural chemicals.

But they hadn't predicted that raising the crop's height would create a strawberry snack bar for rainbow lorikeets, costing, in the farm's worst year, "$200,000 in just a couple of weeks in early crop loss".

"They're not a bird that just comes and has a snack, they actually annihilate entire rows of fruit," Ms Wells explained.

"There's not actually a berry left on a row where they've actually decided to go and eat."

Ms Wells said the influx intensified when rain washed out natural nectar sources.

Bird scarers, gas guns, and driving through the crops have done little to deter the lorikeets.

"They actually come and settle in the night before, and then they're here while that overcast weather is here so they know that they're going to have a good food source."

Over the next three years, the fake falcon drone will take to the skies over the south-east Queensland strawberry farms multiple times a day during the growing season.

"They've had a lot of success in other areas, and we're hoping to see that here," Ms Wells said.

Beak performance

For now, the ornithopters need human operators.

AERIUM Analytics said the three-year trial would determine whether it would hire out drone pilots and RoBirds or sell the units.

Asked if the cost would stack up, the company said the farmers they worked with were crying out for the technology.

"They've all said that they've tried everything," Mr Lagastes said.

"So, the cost-benefit analysis certainly lies with the sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of crop that they're losing."

Bird damage

The federal Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry valued Australian horticultural crop losses to birds at more than $300 million annually.

The damage was unpredictable, varying from year to year and farm to farm.

More than 60 bird species presented a threat, including lorikeets, cockatoos, ducks, corellas and feral Indian mynas.

Ms Wells said the trial had given her hope.

"Super excited to be honest, feeling really optimistic," she said.

"We're really, really hopeful that this is going to be the game changer."