Can you imagine being that bird? You see a big falling dot off in the distance, so you go to investigate. And it’s a human. Just, like, hanging out, in the middle of the sky. Plumbing toward earth at terminal velocity.

“Huh, that’s weird” you think to yourself.

You land on them. They seem nonplussed by their predicament.

But you’re a busy bird, you’ve got places to be. So you just fly off. Good luck, crazy human. Hope you make it.

He was tired. He needed a rest.

I’ve seen this around a bit, and decided to add on this bit of information:

This is a trained bird! You can do this with a group called the the Parahawking Project!!

Their website is here: http://www.parahawking.com/index.php/about

“In an effort to advance the interaction between man and bird, and to provide a unique opportunity to interact with birds of prey in their own environment, Scott Mason conceived and developed Parahawking. Parahawking is paragliding with trained birds of prey. By combining ancient falconry methods with the modern techniques of Paragliding, birds of prey are trained to fly and interact with paragliders and their tandem passengers and to guide them to thermals. Some birds of prey are natural soaring birds that have an amazing ability to conserve energy whilst flying. By using rising currents of warm air, birds of prey are able to gain height and fly long distances without flapping their wings. We as paragliders harness their natural ability to conserve energy by following them as we fly.”

It’s an amazing project that’s brought attention to the decreasing amount of birds of prey in the wild! “The White Backed Vulture, The Slender Billed Vulture and the Long Billed Vulture have declined by a staggering 99.9% in the last 15 years. This catastrophic decline is due to a drug called Diclofenac, an anti inflammatory drug commonly administered to sick and dying livestock across Asia. Diclofenac is poisonous to vultures. Vultures that feed from animal carcasses that have been treated with Diclofenac ingest the remnants of the drug, this causes renal failure resulting in death. The decline represents a loss of approx 40 million birds leaving only thousands left in the wild.”

So, go support these guys!!!