Get ready for some high-flying wildlife monitoring in Klickitat County, because the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) is taking to the skies with drones to keep a bird's eye view on sandhill cranes. The WDFW will use drones to snap pictures and keep tabs on the cranes' nesting habits across state public lands—and potentially private ones, too, with owner permission—from April through July, as stated in a news release.

These aren't your average hobbyist drones, though. Pilots from the Department with the FAA Small Unmanned Aircraft System Remote Pilot certification are manning the controls. They're set to follow a strict rule book from both the Federal Aviation Administration and WDFW policies to ensure they don't ruffle any feathers—either of cranes or humans.

According to the WDFW announcement, these modern bird watchers will use their tech toys to garner high-quality images of the crane habitats. They want to find out if drones can indeed be the future of wildlife surveys.

It's a timely mission, mind you—these endangered birds, which come in greater, lesser, and Canadian subspecies flavors, only nest from April to June before their young ones and they bid adieu to Washington, heading down to Cali's Central Valley for winter. To learn more about these long-legged flyers, crane enthusiasts can drop by the WDFW's sandhill crane webpage. With no closures or big impacts to the public expected, it seems to be smooth flying ahead for both cranes and conservationists.