“In the battle of eagles vs. drones, there is no winner," the department said. “If you see an eagle approaching your drone, the best thing to do is simply lower the device and get it out of the bird’s way. “There is slightly less chance of encountering a bird of prey in the morning as they make use of rising thermal air currents that are more present towards the middle of the day and into the afternoon.” Aside from getting out of the way, there's not much drone pilots can do to protect their often expensive pieces of equipment from being damaged or destroyed - though many are coming up with their own innovative solutions, like attaching fake eyes or reflective strips. But try as they might, Mother Nature retains her aerial superiority, and probably always will.

There are scores of videos online of birds of prey attacking drones – the most recent to hit the headlines was from Skyworks WA, which filmed a dogfight between one of its drones and three eagles in the Wheatbelt. And as more drones take to the sky doing everything from checking powerlines to perhaps one day delivering food or ferrying passengers, sharing the skies is becoming ever more important. An Osprey swooping down. Credit:Grant Griffin Birds of prey in hand WA has strict regulations for flying drones, especially in national, regional and marine parks where birds of prey are more common, with users needing written permission to fly there.

But rather than seeing it as a problem to be fixed with more red tape, Yvonne Sitco from the Western Australian Birds of Prey Centre believes education will help drone pilots avoid becoming prey to these apex predators. I visited her at her private centre near Whiteman Park, where she told me drones were emerging as more of a nuisance for birds of prey, not a threat. "If an eagle sees a drone in its territory then more than likely it will seek to attack it to drive it off no matter what size it is," she said. "They see it as another bird. It’s just their nature.” Yvonne Sitco with Micro, a juvenile Wedge-tailed eagle. Credit:David Allan-Petale Yvonne is best known for training Auzzie, the West Coast Eagle's mascot, to fly around the old Subiaco Oval during home games, and now at the new Optus Stadium.

Weighing in at four and a half kilograms with a wingspan the height of Nic Naitanui (2.1m), Auzzie can saccade her eyes to focus on targets up to one-and-a-half kilometres away with enough clarity "to see the fine print of a newspaper." And she can turn her head 270 degrees, sweeping the air and sky for prey like a radar station. "They are primal animals. It's a basic instinct for them. They have to out think and out manoeuvre their rivals, and up to eighty percent die in the first five years. The ones you see flying around more often than not are the strongest of the species. It's kill or be killed." As we talk outside her enclosure, Auzzie stares at me, spreads her wings to their full span and even flies at the mesh, her claws pushing the fence out half a metre as she seeks to exert her dominance over me, an intruder, even though I'm with her handler. To Sitko, the threats to birds of prey in WA remain the same - land clearing, hunting, poisoning from chemicals and hits from vehicles. The risk from unmanned flying drones is low, but she considers it potentially harmful, especially if the frequency of encounters increases. "The danger is that there could be some small injury to the bird, like a cut or a broken talon. Those things can heal, but it would be best of we reduce the incidence of their encounters.

"Sounds funny but try to lighten the colour of your drone - an eagle that's mature is dark, and a mature bird is more of a mating rival or threat than a young one. I'd also have a good check that there's no mating pairs around, you can access that information through DPaW. Auzzie dives down. Credit:Steve Morice She hands me a gauntlet and asks if I want to have a hold of Micro, a young male wedge-tailed eagle who lost sight in both eyes from poison. I nervously slide the leather glove on my left hand and the noble bird steps both claws to my arm - each talon having a pressure power of up to one tonne per square inch, and a locking mechanism between the hind and index digits that can click into place with the sureness of hand cuffs. "There are Wedge-tailed eagles all over Perth, even in the CBD," Sitko explains. “We often forget that we have significant wildlife in Australia, but they are part of our world."

Aerial dogfights over the local park “You hear stories all the time of the really expensive drones getting taken out up north, and some of them are worth $60 to 100k. I've heard stories of losing 2 in quick succession!" Drone enthusiasts across Australia like Perth’s Ian ‘Sharky’ Jones love to swap stories about their close encounters with winged warriors – and most see it as just another hurdle to overcome in skies already full of challenges. “Birds of prey I’ve not had any direct experience of yet, though many people I know have. But in the metro area the crows and the magpies do get stuck into you,” he said, enjoying telling a good old fashioned flying tale. “I was an early adopter and took out one of the first Parrot models down at Ocean Reef on the coast. I was photographing close to water when a couple of seagulls took off travelling in a straight line, ignoring my drone and expecting me to get out of their way! I panicked a bit And then a second later the drone was in the drink.”

Ian often flies a drone with his wife acting as a spotter, and often brings his daughters along in full safety gear. Credit:Ian Jones A few years later Jones was flying a more advanced drone in Bicton when his wife – acting as a spotter – alerted him to a staffel of blackbirds just as dangerous to a drone as any eagle. What happened next was a dogfight reminiscent of the First World War, with Jones jinking his drone through classic combat manoeuvres like the Chandelle – a 180 degree turn combined with a steep climb or dive. “As a last resort I flew forwards, goading them into a swoop then did a VIFF (Vector In Free Flight), which was developed by Harrier pilots in the Falklands War where they could throw off a pursuing aircraft by effectively slamming on the brakes and going vertical causing the pursuer to overshoot, doing this I found I could escape for a bit in the other direction while the crow set up another swoop" . “It was like something from Alfred Hitchcock. There’s a lot of angry birds out there!”

Drones are finding new uses, including checking communications towers. Drones are expensive, and to protect them from the beaks and claws of ravaging birds Jones has come up with some novel countermeasures – citing inspiration from Indian villagers who wear tiger masks on the backs of their heads. During a trip to Bunnings with his kids, he noticed some cardboard “googly eyes” and thought they could serve the same purpose - and it has worked well. “Tigers are ambush predators so when the villagers wear the masks it can give them eyes in the back of their head, so they seem like they are watching the tiger and it deters them. “Read it in National Geographic which gave me the idea to try it on the drone, along with the same tactic used in nature by butterfly fishes.

“So I pasted the cardboard eyes on the top of my drone. I’ve also experimented with pieces of mirror and reflective strips as well. The main thing is to just keep a good eye out though, and make sure you have a spotter who can help you avoid problems.” He’s even tried putting a plastic hawk on a pole to act as a kind of scarecrow, and has an air horn – though he’s not used it yet because he doesn’t want to disturb people. With a deep interest in marine biology, Jones is also a keen Scuba diver and sees taking these kinds of precautions the same way as using a Shark Shield device. “It’s pragmatic. We are only going to be using more and more drones. There’s ones that can seed crops and spray them. Deliver food. It’s big business. "Ultimately we're in their sky so we have to work with nature to deter it and understand why they swoop and how best to deter.