Paratour - Bird watching by paramotor
Cross Country
N 42
By Bruno Blais
Dec 95/ Jan 96
BIRD WATCHING BY PARAMOTOR
During the summer of 1994, after tagging the new pelegrine falcon babies nested in the region of Quebec, I came across an ad in the local news paper, boasting about the various possibilities the paramotor had to offer and it occurred to me that I might be able to use one for my work.
For the past seven years, I've been employed as a kind of park warden with the job of overseeing the nest of pelegrine falcons.
Blais doing a surveillance flight to inventory the nesting sites in the cliffs at Kamouraska, Quebec. NB after a preflight inspection don't forget the most important part, the anti-noise helmet - a must!
The paramotor would be able to save me long hours of scanning the cliffs with binoculars and telescopes, in search of eventual nesting sites for this bird which has been categorized as an endangered species in Quebec.
The first step was to explain to Eric Dufour of Paratour the demands of my work to see if a paramotor was in fact a suitable tool for such a job. After a single demonstration flight I could just see myself busing buzzing around the cliffs of Quebec. I needed a machine that was stable, easy to handle, possible to launch within a short distance and most of all something I could transport in my car all around the region. This machine catered to all my demands.
The next step was to get my project accepted by my employer, the Minister of Environment and Fauna of Quebec. With the aid of a short promotional video, I was able to explain the advantages of the paramotor in relation to my work for the government. Every 5 years, all the potential nesting sites of the pelegrine falcons are visited and submitted to various methods of inventory, be it ground survey, or observation by boat or helicopter. The latter method, costing between Can $ 600-700 per hour, cast a good light on the relatively inexpensive paramotor.
In viewing the photographic maps and potential nesting sites, we separated those which would be inventoried by helicopter and those by paramotor. Because many hours of helicopter were subtracted which naturally saved lots of money, the Minister, in turn, allowed me a budget of $5000 for the work by paramotor.
At the start of spring, I then took a course on paramotoring which entailed about 5-6 weekend flights in in the company of an instructor... And shortly thereafter I was hovering over the cliffs of Quebec with a Topaze canopy and a 210 motor.
As a first task, I headed right for a site where I knew a pair of falcons nested in order to test their reaction to my motor on their territory. The birds reacted very well, meaning that they took off as I arrived and then perched themselves in the cliff while crying out. It was an interesting reaction for me because it is much easier to locate a bird in flight rather than perched or niched somewhere in the cliff. Numerous cliffs were repertoried in this way.
Unfortunately, this year, no new nesting site has been observed, no matter what the inventory method used. However, the word has spread among the various department of the Ministry, that there is a new machine which can replace the helicopter for the inventory of other species. So I expect to be solicited for other contracts in the near future. Meanwhile, it's not a bad life juggling between professional demands and the pleasure of flying.
