An elephant herd, which was inching closer to a village, fled deep into the forest after spotting two drones.

The herd thought the buzz of the drones was an imminent attack by a swarm of honey bees and fled.

The incident occurred during a test flight of two drones in a forest in Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu, India.

Officials traced located a herd of wild elephants roaming in a reserve forest area between Mangarai and Periya Thadagam and sent two drones to monitor them.

Deepak Srivastava, Chief Conservator of Forests, Coimbatore Circle, said: “The buzzing sound of the rotors - similar to the buzzing of honey bees - made the elephants retract further into the reserve forest.”

“The drones could live stream high quality video from a height of 70 metres. The test flight was quite successful,” he added.

Officials now plan to test the drones, which are equipped with infrared cameras, to monitor the herd at night time.

Coimbatore district has been reporting frequent incidents of human-elephant conflicts over the last few years.