Tour de France, a sheep's eye view

There's great excitement here about the Tour de France starting in Leeds this weekend.  Everywhere you look at the moment there are yellow spray painted bicycles, Tour de France bunting and sculptures.

Yorkshire sheep have a makeover for the big day.

The statue of Harold MacMillan in Huddersfield is currently carrying a baguette under one arm and anything that stays still long enough has been painted in the colours of the Tour de France jerseys, as a flock of sheep near Otley found out...

But my favorite story about Le Tour in Yorkshire so far is that Sony are attaching video cameras to sheep so that we can get footage of the Tour going past from the sheep's perspective.

Yorkshire sheep ready to film the action.

Five sheep from Hewell Hall farm in Harrogate have been selected to do the honours.  The waterproof action cameras mounted on special harnesses for the sheep to wear and can be operated by remote control. 

These little cameras are actually quite clever.  They have a wide array of mounting options, making them perfect for filming cycling, snowboarding, motorsport track days and anything else traditionally difficult to film from a point of view angle.  They come with 4K Ultra HD resolution which was previously unheard of for such a small action camera.  You can use them to film 130 feet under water, so they should have no trouble coping with the Yorkshire weather.  If you fancy a Sony GoPro Action Hero camera, they are, of course, available to buy on the Scorpio website.