I flew with birds. You can too.

I realise that "you can too" is ignoring things like health and wealth, and I did worry about that; as ever, the need to make the title clickable, but short and honest, is a bit of a battle. And also, to be clear, this isn't an advert: I paid for my flight and my camera operator's flight!

The passion that Frenchman has for his birds is admirable. His dedication is amazing

How in the world do you manage to make such consistently compelling videos with massively different themes and experiences each time? It's insane.

This video brought back strong memories of a movie from my childhood, "Fly Away Home", which was inspired by the life of Bill Lishman, a Canadian sculptor who did something similar.

Wow. As a glider pilot I'm used to flying with birds from time to time, but, wow. This is just a whole other level of intimacy with these amazing animals. Amazing.

Being able to pet the birds mid flight must've been a magical feeling..

I really like it when interviews are done in the interviewee's native language. Please keep doing that, Tom

i fully support this frenchman taking tourists out with these birds to fund his conservation efforts. what a hero

As someone who took 4 years of U.S. Highschool French, but is still getting familiar with the language, his French was so easy to follow and understand, super articulate. Very awesome video also!

Tom, thank you for keeping the original French with subtitles rather than dubbing - I find it preferable to listen or read to the original language!

As a former hang glider pilot, ultralight pilot, microlight pilot and paraglider pilot, this video really strikes home. I've never had the luck to fly with a bird, but perhaps as close as one can get to fly like a bird, especially the unpowered versions. This video brings tears to my eyes.

I remember hearing about this guy decades ago-- I'm really glad he's still around and still doing this!

Until now I never realized how little flapping is needed to keep a bird in the air. In human terms, it's like imagining that one would need to run in order to cover distances when in reality you can simply walk from point A to point B. That gets the job done. I thought this because from the ground we can only watch birds take off and in order to get to flight, that's where the big flaps come in. But the minute you are settled in the sky, you don't need to give off that much power. I guess this is why some birds can cover hundreds of miles in a day.

As a kid and obsessed with all things aviation, I loved the movie “Fly Away Home”. This guy is the real deal of that movie.

Started listening to this while doing something else, didn't even realize it was in two languages until I looked and saw subtitles (fluent in both). Funny how the mind works sometimes.

That moment when those birds were redirected from a pilot to another was amaazing – it shows an amazing feat of trust and intimacy of the birds with the pilots. It's just amazing how they could do that automatically, without much 'orders' and with an animal not usually being a pet!

Watching Tom reach out to gently pet the birds brings me so much joy (:

3:00 One takes for granted that flying is "just what birds do." Watching them in flight up close, from an as-literal-as-possible bird's-eye view, renews one's appreciation of both the mechanics of flight, and of the long and meticulous path that evolution has taken and continues to take. Thanks, Tom! :D

I remember watching a film about a family who raised geese and taught them to fly using a glider when I was young. I think it was called fly away home. I wonder if this guy was part of the inspiration.

This was seriously mind-blowing. I expected some goof chasing birds around. This was an entirely different level of experience that I had no idea was even possible. I had a huge smile on my face throughout the whole video and I wasn’t even flying.