The DJI Phantom 4 may come packed with a tonne of intelligent flight modes to help you send it soaring through the sky, but what we really care about is how it stacks up against Mother Nature's finest -- a barn owl.

In this special video we put beak against lens, wings against propellors and feathers against, well, plastic, in a series of challenges to see which flying machine is best suited to a life in the air.

Can DJI's research department outwit millions of years of evolution? Will feathers be ruffled by the drone's 45 mph top speed? Will I get me face clawed off?

Our thanks to The Feather Folk for meeting us with Foggy the barn owl for this challenge. Our commiserations to DJI for this hard loss.