From Iceland — Grumpy Swans Destroy Indian Drone

Grumpy Swans Destroy Indian Drone

Published September 5, 2017

Valur Grettisson
Photo by
Gunnar Þór Gunnarsson

A couple of malevolent swans in the Westfjords of Iceland showed some Indian tourist that they are not to be messed with. Found footage showed a violent attack on a drone that had found itself in the wrong neighbourhood.

Bergsveinn Reynisson, a farmer at Geirdalsá, near Króksfarðarnesi in the West of Iceland, told Morgunblaðið that a few days ago, two Indian tourists had knocked on his door to ask him for help in finding a missing drone.

Bergsveinn did what all good farmers in Iceland do, he helped the disheartened tourists, who told him that the drone crashed into the ocean near the farm.

The tourists showed Bergsveinn the last footage from the drone, which had been saved remotely, and Bergsveinn described the clip like something out of a found footage horror films like the Blair Witch Project, or the Blair Witch Project remake.

In the clip he watched in terror as the drone flew to a swamp nearby, where around three hundred swans stood in peace eating.

„The drone flew in and the swans watched it angrily, which is understandable for this was a rude invasion of their private lives,“ Bergsveinn told the reporter laughing.

Bergsveinn said that the grumpy swans watched as the drone flew over, but as there were heavy winds the swans had a hard time flying, Bergsveinn said. So the swans waited patiently as the drone flew over, until they had the wind at their backs.

„But the minute the drone was like beside them, they started to fly,“ Bergsveinn said. And the swans were combative. The last minutes in the video showed one of the swans attacking the drone, hitting it heavily.

„The last thing you could see was how the left wing of the bird hit the lens,“ Bergsveinn said. „And everything went pitch black.“

Following the criminal attack, the drone crashed into the ocean. Bergsveinn sailed out the same day in bad weather and tried in vain to find the broken machine. He returned the day after and soon discovered the lense from the drone.

„The drone was in the water at a depth of around two meters,“ Bergsveinn explained. He said that the drone was destroyed, but that the tourist managed to salvaged the memory card.

„They were very happy that they were able to get the memory card back, as it had all the footage from their travels in Iceland the past two weeks.“

Bergsveinn said that it didn’t appear that the swans got hurt in this confrontation.

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