Screengrab of an osprey going after a quadcopter, via.

Jeff Bezos and his (still grounded) Prime Air drone delivery service will have more than gun-toting anti-drone Coloradans and a whole lot of the FAA’s red tape to contend with. The more realistic barrier to a door-to-door drone airmail scheme? Birds of prey.

Not in the flock-of-geese-swept-up-in-the-engines sense. 

“The difference for Amazon’s drones is that the birds will be chasing them,” writes bird enthusiast Nicholas Lund at Slate. 

See, the skies above our heads are a battle ground. Largely unseen to most of us confined to living on the ground is that commercial airspace, where passenger and cargo planes whip around and, just maybe, where Prime Air drones will be whirring about in a few short years, “are checkered with fiercely defended bird territories,” Lund adds. All manner of open-country raptors, such as eagles and hawks and kites, simply do not like their hunting and breeding grounds winged (wunged?) upon.

Stray too far into some other bird’s turf and you get the talons. And don’t even get ’em started if it’s nesting season. 

Don’t believe me? Just look at this bird striking down a hapless RC plane:

Or this eagle attacking an RC glider:

Or this osprey fucking with a quadcopter:

Hell, even smaller birds like these swallows are capable of wreaking havoc on small-fry unmanned aircraft:

All of which is to say, raptors will only bomb Jeff Bezos’ brave new soap-delivery future if he can actually manage to get Prime Air off the ground.  

@thebanderson