High Tech Meets Jugaad in the Jungle to Study Agumbe’s Flying Dragons
A drone, 7 GoPro cameras, 2 Wi-Fi GoPro cause remotes, a Canon DSLR, a couple of digicam lenses, 7 heavy accountability tripods, eight reminiscence playing cards, eight walkie-talkies, 7 top capability energy banks, a anemometer, numerous charging and knowledge switch cables, an optically stabilizing binocular, a 4TB exterior laborious pressure, all packed in two black army grade pelican circumstances. I nonetheless consider the glances that I were given from other folks on the airports whilst bringing all my analysis tools from america to India in the summertime of 2017. I seemed like a person on a undertaking… a vital undertaking. It used to be close to positive that I might be pulled out on the safety take a look at at each airport. I had my elevator pitch able on how some of these devices had been to assist me get to the bottom of the mysteries of the flying dragon!
I used to be touring to the Agumbe Rainforest Analysis Station (ARRS); nestled within the Western Ghats of Karnataka, the Agumbe rainforest is house to one of the species of gliding lizards belonging to the genus Draco present in Asia. Famously known as the flying dragons of the animal kingdom, those magnificent, but cryptic creatures don’t seem to be your typical gliders. Measuring roughly a palm duration, they release from treetops and unfold their wing like Batman’s cape. As soon as airborne, they deftly manoeuvre the jungle maze, actively controlling their aerial descent and masking distances over 100 occasions their frame duration in lower than a couple of seconds. When it is time to land, they reorient themselves like a parachute deploying from a fighter jet, slowing down and touchdown on their supposed goal tree.
My objective used to be to grasp the thriller in the back of their easy and well-choreographed gliding behaviour, and the devices had been the important thing to unencumber this thriller.
So, what used to be my sport plan? My staff and I might arrange a makeshift flight area cordoning off two bushes within the jungle. One will be the takeoff tree and the opposite, the touchdown tree. Lizards could be stuck and launched at the takeoff tree. The 7 GoPro cameras — 5 fastened on tripods and one each and every at the takeoff and touchdown bushes — would concurrently document a go with the flow from other angles. Each and every digicam used to be attached to an influence financial institution in order that it might be regularly charged for prolonged bouts of recording. The walkie-talkies had been hung at the tripod into which I may discuss and document audio notes (ambient temperature, wind velocity, animal behaviour), and likewise use the audio to sync frames throughout all cameras. The Wi-Fi far flung would cause get started/ forestall recording for the entire cameras. The cables had been the underlying community connecting the entirety in combination. Some of these devices needed to paintings in unison for the put up recording computer-vision wizardry to paintings and sew the entire perspectives in combination and convey 3-dimensional place knowledge. This might shape the root of all my research.
Did it paintings? As is the case with maximum issues in existence, some improvisation (‘jugaad’) used to be required. The primary ‘jugaad’ got here with the GoPro cameras. Being motion cameras, GoPros are ultra-portable and rugged, able to dealing with excessive (type of) stipulations. Or no less than that is what I assumed. Within the scorching and humid tropical climate, when temperatures reached just about 35C, a number of of the cameras would invariably overheat and mechanically transfer off. Dropping any of the cameras used to be like shedding a work of a jigsaw puzzle — with out it, the image could be incomplete. This used to be sure to occur, and a repair used to be essential. We sourced plastic plates from the within sight the city as non-public umbrellas for each and every digicam. This didn’t assist. We painted the plates white to replicate daylight higher. This didn’t paintings both. Time used to be working out, particularly for the reason that I had only a month prior to the monsoon hit and the lizards’ task dropped significantly.
The usage of plastic plates to stay the warmth of the GoPros
Photograph Credit score: Pranav Khandelwal
Input Shankar CM, the station manager-cum-electronics wizard. Inside of a couple of hours of reconsidering our choices, we determined to construct non-public cooling rigs for each and every digicam. Because of Shankar’s ingenuity, we sourced fabrics from the within sight the city and pc lovers from Bangalore. However the logistics posed any other catch 22 situation. There’s no supply provider and Agumbe is past Amazon and Flipkart. So Shankar got here up with any other native answer. The conductor of a state bus at the Bangalore-Agumbe course delivered the lovers for us from a neighborhood store in Bangalore. Shankar spent a couple of days making custom designed circuits to energy the lovers the use of the ability bricks. Lo and behold, each and every digicam had a non-public cooling gadget with a security internet round it to stop any hurt to the lizard from the spinning blades. The ability financial institution would now price the digicam and run the fan. We did a take a look at run and the cameras may now run for greater than four hours with out powering off.
The second one ‘jugaad’ – the dragon catcher. We needed to spot (the use of binoculars) and catch lizards perched on tall areca hands in order that they might then be launched within the flight area for recording. The lizards had been usually top up within the bushes and it used to be a combat working round looking for person who used to be inside arm’s achieve. Shankar’s artful creations got here to the rescue once more. The usage of tripod poles and a steel tong, Shankar used to be ready to make an extended pole (6m) with a horseshoe formed cord hooked up to the tong at one finish which used to be wrapped with a thick cushy padding and fabric placing from it. A string attached to the horseshoe formed cord hung on the different finish. When pulled, the string would shut the horseshoe, wrapping it across the tree trunk; this could pressure the lizard to climb downwards, and proper into our ready hands! This dragon catcher may appear rudimentary and won’t immediately qualify as ‘tech’, however this contraption proved to be one of the helpful items of device within the woodland to seize lizards for recording.
I will pass on and on about the usage of era – how the drone helped map the jungle panorama to measure the lizard territory, to the usage of DSLR digicam to seize qualitative behaviour knowledge and the entire lovely photos of the paintings that you just see right here. However none of this could had been conceivable with out the crowd of like-minded, curious people who helped me arrange and use the devices that enabled knowledge assortment in ways in which weren’t conceivable prior to. I will be able to most definitely pass out on a limb and say that it used to be those devices that allowed me to fulfill such a lot of other folks, percentage my love for analysis, and shape a group which I now name the ‘Draco circle of relatives’.
The overall cooling rig the use of pc lovers
Photograph Credit score: Pranav Khandelwal
Pranav Khandelwal is an Indian researcher serious about the workings of the flora and fauna round us. He research the underlying processes that permit animals to transport in advanced spatial environments and the way it may be implemented to real-world programs. His analysis closely depends upon the use of consumer-grade era as a device to procure behavioural knowledge in real-world settings.
Shankar CM focuses on custom designed answers for Ecological analysis apparatus. He has labored in far flung places in India running on initiatives associated with animal tracking and conservation.
This sequence is an initiative through the Nature Conservation Basis, underneath their programme Nature Communique to inspire nature content material in all Indian languages. In case you are considering writing on nature and birds, please replenish this form.
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