While camera-equipped drones can certainly pull in some pretty awesome footage if you hit the right location, you’d do well to beat the kind of point-of-view experience offered when you strap an action camera to the back of a big bird.
That’s exactly what happened in Dubai on Saturday when a conservation group attached a Sony Action Cam Mini to Darshan the eagle before he launched off the top of the Burj Khalifa, at 830 meters (2,722 feet) the world’s tallest building.
The dramatic footage, which was livestreamed by the BBC, offers viewers an exhilarating ride all the way down to the eagle’s handler at the base of the building, with panoramic views of Dubai captured along the way.
Darshan’s descent, which was organized by Freedom Conservation to raise awareness about endangered birds of prey, is said to be the highest ever recorded bird flight from a man-made structure and follows similar stunts by the same eagle off the Eiffel Tower in Paris and London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral.
You can join Darshan on his record-breaking flight by hitting play on the video above – and be sure to check out the neat moment at 1:38 when the bird switches from a glide to a dive seconds before landing.
If you’d like to try your own hand at some animal-based POV action cam footage but don’t have an eagle out back, you could always strap a GoPro to your pooch. Just don’t go throwing him off the top of a tall building.
