UAV’s or drones are increasingly being used in environmental science, as a great way of gathering imagery and deploying sensors. In mid September, Richard Lucas, from UNSW organised a fantastic meeting, which brought together a range of different UAV’s and sensors for a few days of frenetic data gathering. We were lucky enough to get involved, and helped to set up ‘challenges’ and ground truth some of the data acquired. The data that has now been gathered in Lake Paddock (the central area for the chestnut-crowned babbler project), and Gap Hill (the key area for our work on zebra finches), will provide excellent insight into the link between landscape, vegetation and avian ecology, once it is all processed and analysed.