Study area Averbode Bos & Heide is a nature reserve situated near the locality of Averbode, in the province of Flemish-Brabant, Flanders, Belgium. The area is managed by the nature conservation NGO Natuurpunt and consists of wet and dry heathlands, inland dunes, forests and moorland pools. In the years prior to the drone flights, large stands of mostly coniferous trees were cut to enable ecological restoration of heathlands and moorland pools. The drone flight was triggered by a particular interest to monitor the effects of this restoration. Data collection Data were collected by the Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) with a fixed wing drone Gatewing X100 in 2015 and 2016 (6 flights). RGB data were acquired using an off-the-shelf Ricoh GR Digital IV camera, with the following image bands: 1: red, 2: green, 3: blue, 4: alpha channel. CIR (color-infrared) data were acquired using a NIR-enabled Ricoh GR Digital IV camera, with the following info bands: 1: NIR, 2: red, 3: green, 4: alpha ... : This dataset was collected using infrastructure provided by INBO and funded by Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO) as part of the Belgian contribution to LifeWatch. ...