GPS tracker for free flight

I have been looking into mounting a GPS tracker on my macaws harness for when I will free fly them, the first time.

The harness I use does not have a line attached to it and it would be easy to attach some gps device to either the back or chest of the harness. The only thing is, the tracker has to be small and sturdy enough to take a macaw beak if it is to be attached to the chest.

Does anybody know of any GPS tracker, which would be suitable for this?

I would love to hear of this as well!


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The rapid growth in drones and their common-on boards 'equipment' has greatly reduced the size and weight of GPS tracking components. In addition to the precision of its locating abilities. This technology, although robust has not been designed to withstand the ravages of a MAC Beak. Therefore, location will be a problem since one would have to place it out of the reach of the Beak, which does not leave much real estate.

The other item, which is just as important and possible more dangerous to the MAC is the batteries required. Add wiring and the package represents a load of things to gain the interest of a MAC.

Find a Store that is 'repairing' drones and they can show and provide you the equipment needed.

Enjoy!

SailBoat said:

The rapid growth in drones and their common-on boards 'equipment' has greatly reduced the size and weight of GPS tracking components. In addition to the precision of its locating abilities. This technology, although robust has not been designed to withstand the ravages of a MAC Beak. Therefore, location will be a problem since one would have to place it out of the reach of the Beak, which does not leave much real estate.

The other item, which is just as important and possible more dangerous to the MAC is the batteries required. Add wiring and the package represents a load of things to gain the interest of a MAC.

Find a Store that is 'repairing' drones and they can show and provide you the equipment needed.

Enjoy!

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Great tip! Thanks.

And you also gave me an additional method to do their first flights more safe; get someone to have a drone follow them. Obviously I need to get them used to the sound of a drone and to fly with the drone. This can easily be done, as I have a large indoor arena, where I do all my pre-free-flight-training.

I will keep you posted if I find a safe way of giving them their first real free flight

If someone else has any other ideas, please post

I was planning to attach a Pod 3 GPS tracker to the back of my next macaw's harness. It weighs 31 grams. If something lighter and better comes out, great, but if not, this one seems pretty good. It's actually meant for pets, so it has that full degree of accessibility and ease of use behind it. If you've ever looked up wildlife GPS trackers (the kind of devices that only weigh a couple grams), you've seen that they're prohibitively expensive and a lot more complicated for the average user.

The problem is, of course, training a bird not to chew on something like the Pod 3. However, I have resolved that I will train my next bird to wear the harness and the GPS tracker comfortably and with minimal chewing. (I lost my Hahn's macaw this weekend...still hoping to find him.) I understand that you should never rely on something like GPS; your bird should just be trained. But much of that training takes places outdoors, and if something should go wrong, at least there is more chance of recovery with a tracker on them. The bird could be less than a mile from you and you might never know. With the GPS, you could know, get them back, and train to correct the problem for next time. I would rather my bird wear a harness which could admittedly get caught on something, and a GPS tracker which they might break, than no tracker at all. (I would also rather train for free flight than not.)

I don't see why free flight birds should be any different than dogs and cats with regards to GPS tracking. Maybe it's "less impressive" to have the harness and tracker on, but if it means I can find the bird in the event of a mishap, that is more than fine by me. I just have to reiterate, I'm not saying you should train less because you think you're safe with the GPS. I don't believe that using a GPS tracker is "relying" on a GPS tracker, either. It's just some kind of safety measure rather than nothing. You can train and train and train, but until you go outside, you never know what will happen. If my Hahn's macaw were bigger and wearing a tracker, it is very likely I would have him right now, or at least know what tree he's in. People can make mistakes while training, too. It seems unnecessarily harsh to say "Well, if you make a mistake, your bird is gone forever". Why not have something to fall back on to give the person a chance to correct their mistake?

So yeah. Some people would probably say it's more trouble than it's worth, but I don't think so. I just think the technology for a tracker light enough for birds hasn't been practical for the average person until just recently, and even then, you need to have a big macaw to make something like the Pod 3 work. I think that's really why we don't see birds wearing them. It's hard to train them to leave it alone, if they didn't learn to fly with the harness, that could handicap them until they learn how to deal with it, etc. Combine that with a small population of people doing free flight and no established precedent for putting trackers on the birds and it makes sense why you don't see it being done. It's not impossible, it just isn't common yet. It's accepted that big, loud, colourful macaws are the best to free-fly because they're easiest to recover. Even easier to recover is a big, loud, colourful macaw wearing a GPS tracker.

Just my two cents... I had been looking into GPS for pet birds long before I started training my Hahn's, and I would have definitely had him wear a tracker if he were big enough. He wasn't, so I didn't, but I'll make sure my next bird wears one.

I forgot to say that I have found the Trackimo. It's a little pricy, but looks durable and reliable enough to be worth while. I followed Stephen (Mr. Boat)'s advise and asked one of my friends, who has A LOT of drones, some of which are really expensive. He recommended me the Trackimo. It has realtime tracking (a lot of pet trackers would have problems working up high, as the tech relies on being in reach of mobile phones), it's durable and water resistant.

I would never shorten any birds training and trust the GPS, but all sorts of things could happen. Last time (before today) it suddenly got really windy and Trudi is not sufficiently wind trained.

I have tried once, that the wind took my bird and took me 4 hours to get her back. That may not sound like a problem, but it was below freezing and I got really freaked out.

Another time my macaw got spooked and flew ½ km home and sat in the tree next to my front door.

In both instances a GPS tracker would not have helped, but it would make me feel more secure. I never let any of my birds out before I am sure they are sufficiently trained and bonded, that their preferred place in the world is with me. But as with both instances above and a million others I could imagine, you never know...

No matter how much planning in regards to training, there will always be the unknown factor and having a GPS tracker would ease my mind a bit.

I wonder if gopros have trackers in them. it would be fascinating if you could get footage as well.

I have seen footage from some birds free flight, but must admit, I think a gopro is too bulky for my 11 month old Scarlet. I guess my BG would be able to carry a gopro, but he is not used to wear a harness during flight I have only trained Trudi to wear a harness during flight.

SilleIN said:

I have seen footage from some birds free flight, but must admit, I think a gopro is too bulky for my 11 month old Scarlet. I guess my BG would be able to carry a gopro, but he is not used to wear a harness during flight I have only trained Trudi to wear a harness during flight.

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GoPro is a wonder technology, but they are not designed as a carry-on for Parrots! Continue to source from the Drone support products and I believe that you will be much happier. For certain, your Parrot will be!

SailBoat said:

GoPro is a wonder technology, but they are not designed as a carry-on for Parrots! Continue to source from the Drone support products and I believe that you will be much happier. For certain, your Parrot will be!

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I don't have any ambition of filming in air flight, at least not from bird perspective. Any filming will be done from the ground I just want a tracker to make me feel more at ease during the inital trainings outside (or maybe even forever, can't help but think about Marks Maggie :smile014: )

SilleIN said:

I forgot to say that I have found the Trackimo. It's a little pricy, but looks durable and reliable enough to be worth while. I followed Stephen (Mr. Boat)'s advise and asked one of my friends, who has A LOT of drones, some of which are really expensive. He recommended me the Trackimo. It has realtime tracking (a lot of pet trackers would have problems working up high, as the tech relies on being in reach of mobile phones), it's durable and water resistant.

I would never shorten any birds training and trust the GPS, but all sorts of things could happen. Last time (before today) it suddenly got really windy and Trudi is not sufficiently wind trained.

I have tried once, that the wind took my bird and took me 4 hours to get her back. That may not sound like a problem, but it was below freezing and I got really freaked out.

Another time my macaw got spooked and flew ½ km home and sat in the tree next to my front door.

In both instances a GPS tracker would not have helped, but it would make me feel more secure. I never let any of my birds out before I am sure they are sufficiently trained and bonded, that their preferred place in the world is with me. But as with both instances above and a million others I could imagine, you never know...

No matter how much planning in regards to training, there will always be the unknown factor and having a GPS tracker would ease my mind a bit.

Click to expand...

Thanks for letting me know about the Trackimo. It sounds similar to the Pod 3, which also tracks using the 2G and 3G network, but if people use it for drones, maybe it would be better to use for parrots than anything else. I see that you can track your Trackimo on the website as well as through the app. Is that what you mean by not needing it to communicate with the phone? It seems like you can customise a lot of settings, which is great.

One bad thing is that it's not waterproof, so you'd likely need to buy their waterproof case, but the upside of that is the case is also a battery extension which increases the battery life up to 12-21 days. That's pretty sweet. I'm just wondering how much weight the case would add. With the device itself only being about 40 grams, I can't imagine the case would be too big of a deal to add, but I wish someone could tell me the exact weight.

I think the GPS would help in the instances you mentioned above because you'd know where to look. If a bird goes out of sight at any point, you have no idea what direction they really went in. It would be very helpful to pull up the GPS and quickly determine whether you're walking in the wrong direction.

Every time I consider, in my mind, flying a bird without a GPS tracker, I remember my bird, who would fly to me like I was the greatest thing in the world, who never wanted to be away from me, who seemed to be doing so well, who disappeared over the trees. I just don't think I'll do it ever again. If my bird gets scared of something and happens to fly too far, I need something to locate him. The bird could be trying to locate me and just not be able to. Knowing his approximate location could mean the difference between him being attacked by an animal or not. It could mean the difference between him being stolen or not. I'm definitely not trying to frighten anyone who doesn't use a GPS, but this is my personal feeling after losing a bird. As you said, there are a million situations which could arise. At the end of the day, no animal or situation is 100% predictable, and I'd like to have that extra tool to help both me and the bird.

I pulled this from this thread:
http://www.parrotforums.com/lost-found/69152-lost-macaw-moab.html

YUMgrinder said:

So I searched for lost macaw in moab on facebook and got a hit from someone who lost their hybrid last year, I called them and it wasn't theirs but they knew a bunch of people in Utah with macaws and got a hold of them. They were able to identify the gps tag on its tail and it is so unique they couldn't be wrong. Apparently, they are developing a gps for flighted birds and they couldn't get a solid signal with the gps. They also knew the location and the timeframe matched when it was found.

They even have a facebook page called flying colors aviary. I'm so glad I was able to get Delilah back to her owners. Such an strange, interesting story I will tell forever.

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Yeah, well with a macaw the real hitch is the "crunch/crack" THIS THING IS TOAST factor...

that's weird this thread came up active as the macaw I found the owners of today in Utah actually are developing a GPS device for their macaws. they have an aviary called flying colors aviary, you can find them on facebook. Anyways, he said they are using a gps developed for falcons. The macaw that was lost in Utah today had one clipped to his tail but they weren't able to pinpoint it due to an issue with the GPS or something. They said they are currently looking into different ways to attach it. They said they plan on having a working version very soon!

YUMgrinder said:

that's weird this thread came up active as the macaw I found the owners of today in Utah actually are developing a GPS device for their macaws. they have an aviary called flying colors aviary, you can find them on facebook. Anyways, he said they are using a gps developed for falcons. The macaw that was lost in Utah today had one clipped to his tail but they weren't able to pinpoint it due to an issue with the GPS or something. They said they are currently looking into different ways to attach it. They said they plan on having a working version very soon!

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I crossed the two threads!

Birdman666 said:

Yeah, well with a macaw the real hitch is the "crunch/crack" THIS THING IS TOAST factor...

Click to expand...

I understand. It would require a lot of training to teach the bird to ignore the device, even with starting from a young age. It's just something I really want to try and implement.

YUMgrinder said:

that's weird this thread came up active as the macaw I found the owners of today in Utah actually are developing a GPS device for their macaws. they have an aviary called flying colors aviary, you can find them on facebook. Anyways, he said they are using a gps developed for falcons. The macaw that was lost in Utah today had one clipped to his tail but they weren't able to pinpoint it due to an issue with the GPS or something. They said they are currently looking into different ways to attach it. They said they plan on having a working version very soon!

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If they get it working and plan on selling it for a reasonable price, I would definitely be interested. I hope someone can bring such a product to parrot owners sooner rather than later. While I completely understand that GPS is not magic and no replacement for training, as I've said before, it can help in a bad situation. I do think that widely available, convenient GPS devices, especially those which could remain on/in the bird permanently, would be beneficial for the happiness of captive birds as a whole. The "every bird should be clipped" argument would hardly stand with regards to a bird who is both trained AND equipped with a GPS locator. Just my opinion.

Hello I am after a GPS tracker for my bird. Just seeing if any further information on this has come up. Has anyone used one and know where to get one.
I have a black cockatoo that I free fly mosts days. She loves it and she looks awesome gliding around.
Thanks Scott

Scoott said:

Hello I am after a GPS tracker for my bird. Just seeing if any further information on this has come up. Has anyone used one and know where to get one.
I have a black cockatoo that I free fly mosts days. She loves it and she looks awesome gliding around.
Thanks Scott

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I would strongly recommend that you have your Too Micro Chipped if you are free flying.

The rapidly expanding world of drones and batteries have combined to support GPS trackers as the drone communicates with the base control regarding its location. As ever larger drones with combustion engines enter the market that has taken the market in yet another direction. But, there is still a very large segment powered by batteries, hence the effort to provide smaller, lighter tracker units.

I am not aware of any organizations of size making units for Parrots. But there are a couple of individuals building them as of six months ago in Western USA. Have not followed their work because our area is heavily populated by Red Tail Hanks.

I noticed today what appears as some type of device on a Bald Eagle that made the news today that landed on a baseball player. You might be able to find the video on FNC

My first reaction was "why look into drones when there are proven small & lightweight ones available in the falconry-world"? No one in their right minds flies their bird of prey without one (or two) these days.
But I can imagine the price (and the fact the parrots are a *lot* better at removing things from their tailfeathers) would be a problem.



(I do not know that many people who keep and hunt with birds of prey and somehow "where did you get your locationgear" never came up - yet!)