Leaf-Peeping Drone Patrol Grounds 14 Drones Over Miller’s Overlook Foliage Zone

MILLERS FALLS — The Leaf-Peeping Drone Patrol grounded 14 drones over the weekend in the Miller’s Overlook foliage zone, where unauthorized aerial photography has been banned since the “Drone Swarm Incident” of 2024, in which 30 drones converged on the same maple at golden hour and “created a buzzing cloud visible from the interstate.”

The patrol, a two-officer unit equipped with binoculars, a signal-jamming rifle “used only as a last resort and mostly for show,” and a laminated copy of the county’s Airspace-Over-Foliage Ordinance, monitors the overlook’s three-quarter-mile no-fly cylinder from a folding-chair command post.

“People think the sky is free. The sky over the overlook is not free; it is zoned,” said patrol officer Dana Whitaker, who logged the weekend’s 14 interceptions in a spiral notebook titled “SKY VIOLATIONS.” Confiscated drones are held for 72 hours and returned with a pamphlet, “Your Drone Is Welcome at the Parking Lot (Grounded).”

The ordinance allows licensed commercial operators — currently two, both wedding photographers — and one research drone operated by the state university’s forestry department, which Whitaker described as “the only drone up there doing actual work, and frankly it’s a pleasure to watch.” All others must remain below the treeline or, preferably, in their carrying cases.

Repeat offenders face a $150 fine and a 30-day zone ban. “One gentleman has been caught four times,” Whitaker said. “He says the maples ‘call to him.’ I told him the maples can call all they want; the ordinance doesn’t have a feelings exception.”

Whitaker’s folding-chair command post — two chairs, a cooler, the spiral-bound “SKY VIOLATIONS” log, and a thermos labeled “PATROL COFFEE (DECAF AFTER 2)” — has become a minor landmark, with leaf-peepers stopping to ask whether the patrol is “part of the attraction.” “We’re not,” Whitaker said, “but I’ve started waving, because it’s a nice day and the foliage is genuinely spectacular, which — off the record — I understand why everyone wants the photo.” The patrol’s unofficial motto, stenciled on the cooler: “THE SKY IS ZONED.”

The four-time offender — cited in the log as “Gentleman, Repeat, Maples Called to Him” — was intercepted again Sunday with a new drone, “bigger, quieter, and, he assured me, ‘more respectful.’” Whitaker confiscated it, issued the $150 fine and 30-day ban, and, she admitted, “felt a little bad, because the footage on his controller was beautiful — golden hour, the whole valley, not a buzzing cloud in sight.” She returned the drone after 72 hours with the pamphlet. “He’ll be back,” she said. “They always come back. The maples keep calling.”