Is it just me, or have other BRs noticed an increasing number of birds, usually pigeons or doves, congregating on roads and refusing to budge when a car comes along? This leaves the driver, especially if he is being followed by another vehicle, with no option other than to plough on, with fatal consequences to the bird(s). Distressing to the driver and passengers, too.
What do you do in such a situation?
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Try and hit them with the centre of the car rather than my wheels. That way the remains are edible.
Yummy, pigeon pie.....
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I usually try to stun them with the front spoiler then run over them with the front and back wheel so they have a quick and relatively painless demise. Unfortunately being whacked with a spoiler can send them spinning into the side of the road so they don't get another good whack from both the wheels going over them.
Blat, thumpty thump...
teabelly
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>>Try and hit them with the centre of the car rather than my wheels. That way the remains are edible.
A very important tool in the poacher's handbook. But if it's game, don't do it on a Sunday, as it's against the law. It's also against the law to pick it up if you killed it & it is game. (Deer, Hare, Pheasant, Partridge, Grouse etc.)
But roadkill doesn't taste as good as shot birds. When a bird is put up by the beaters lactic acid is generated (as a reaction to fight or flight instincts). This lactic acid within the muscles helps to tenderise the meat after death - much as an acidic marinade would.
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Mapmaker: your breadth of knowledge is astounding - it must be the Cambridge connection!
But, since you mention shooting, these selfsame pigeons which don't seem able to see a car, know to the millimetre the exact killing range of a 12 bore, and take evasive action at precisely the right moment, doubtless chortling as they go.
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It's also against the law to pick it up if you killed it & it is game. (Deer, Hare, Pheasant, Partridge, Grouse etc.)
Not any longer it isn't. In fact it hasn't been for quite a while now.
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Really? When did that change. Game is still the property of the landowner. And you are using an 'engine' to take game that is the property of somebody else.
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There are more birds on the roads at this time of the year because they're feeding on the corn that has fallen from the farmers trailer when he takes the crop from the field to the drier.
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...yup...a perennial problem...these daft creatures seem to have
zero road sense...also...once I was driving through the dark
hills of Sidmouth and a baby rabbit suddenly jumped out in front
of me...no matter which way I turned...he followed
(maybe hypnotised by me headlights?...dunno)
...but I just know the people in the car behind me (who couldn't see the pesky critter) just thought I was a nutter weaving all over
the road at 3MPH...*rolling eyes*
...oh and by the way...if anyone in England ever has the dubious
pleasure of driving up or down Erdington High Street (Birmingham)
...it aint the pigeons u have to worry about...it's the pedestrians!!
I was a
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...but I just know the people in the car behind me (who couldn't see the pesky critter) just thought I was a nutter weaving all over the road at 3MPH...*rolling eyes*
Lol, can't help but laugh at that image.
Hope the poor little mite got away though...
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ahh, the best ones are the pheasants, that wait all innocent like at the side of the road, and just as you get near, they dart into the road. If there were a top ten of stupid animals this would no doubt be my number one.
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With a mate once going fishing and he'd just got up to 30mph after turning into a country road when a pheasant dashed in front of his Escort estate.
The bird smashed part of the front grille as a result of the collision but, to our amazement as we walked back, it merely shook its head and dashed off into a nearby farmyard.
Would have been a tough bird to eat....:-)
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I got a magpie once in a particularly suicidal mood.
I was driving down a NSL lane at around 50mph, and there was a group of magpies sitting on a fence to one side. Just as i went past them, one flew off and headbutted the centre of my windscreen before cartwheeling over the top of my car and landing on the road behind. It must have been able to see me coming for a good 10 seconds before deciding to leave the fence!
Personally i think they're all just playing 'chicken'!
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Only pigeons or doves? Two occasions I remember vividly from my five years in Oz. Every autumn when the grain was being brought in from the fields to the grain silos ready for the train much would get spilt on the roads. On one occasion I came around the corner at around 100km/h to be faced with a flock (>30) of sulphur crested cockatoos and eastern rosellas, thud thud thud thud and a cloud of
white, red, yellow and blue feathers emerged from under the car and
drifted away in the wind.
On another trip we were driving out near Broken Hill, real outback Australia, red earth, blue skies and large red roo carcasses by the side of the road. As we drove towards Broken Hill my wife pointed out a large carcass on the road and said 'thats still moving', it was: as we approached four wedgetailed eagles took off (each rather larger than a golden eagle in the UK). Unfortunately they had been gorging on the carcass and could hardly gain height. We both ducked instinctively as the nearest barely cleared the car.
StarGazer
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View the scene...
going over Belmont moors (near Bolton), pillion on the back of my mates Yamaha 750, at just over 70mph ;-). A sparrow decides it wants to be in the same space as us at the same time. It... erm... disintegrated as it hit the rear view mirror stalk. Both of us were covered in blood and feathers :-(
We were lucky and stayed shiny side up, my dad was knocked unconscious by a bird while riding his motorcycle many years ago and got a bad case of road rash.
John R
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a friend arrived at work t'other day in a rather flash Saxo to find a widdle birdy sticking beak first out of grill....wings sticking out sideways and everything....perished of course...
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I remember reading about why birds have such problems with approaching vehicles. It's apparently to do with the way that they judge distance. We do it by focussing both of our eyes at the object we're observing and our brain measures the angles that each of the eyes has taken up (binocular vision). For a distant object the relative angle between the two eyes is infinitesimally small, for a close object it's large (about 90 degrees for something about an inch from your nose). This is quick and accurate, which is why we can play games involving rapidly-moving objects, eg cricket, squash etc.
Birds use a different method. For most of them, (owls excepted?)their eyes are on the side of the head and cannot both be focussed on the same object at the same time. They measure changes in distance by observing the rate of change of the size of an image, rather than using binocular vision. This rate of change in the size of an image of an approaching object (eg a car)is slow when the object is distant; it's only rapid when the object gets close up (try it for yourself). That's why birds apparently leave it until the last minute before flying up in alarm - thay haven't noticed the approaching object until then.
Apparently birds aren't too bad when approaching objects are going less than 40 mph (the max speed of a natural predator) but they don't cope well with objects faster than this.
The only solution seems to be to slow down!
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vicky1 - lol!
Reminds me that the exact same things happened to me a few months ago, i pulled up outside my mates house to wait for the limo taking us out for his 21st Birthday celebrations. After a few pre-limo drinks we went back outside to find the limo parked with its headlights illuminating the Robin stuck feet-first in my front grill!
Within milli-seconds 6 or 7 cameraphones appeared from jacket pockets....
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when living in France I managed to hit a roe deer. his head hit my bumper. Unfortunately the deer was no more, so I took the opportunity of putting it in the boot and taking it home. Very nice eating it was as well. (by French law, any road kill is the property of the local commune)
also when I was at college, a mate of mine hit an owl. he was full of remorse but thought that it would be good to get it stuffed. unfortunately the owl wasn't quite as past it as at first thought and started flapping (fortunately it was in a plastic bag).
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also when I was at college, a mate of mine hit an owl. he was full of remorse but thought that it would be good to get it stuffed. unfortunately the owl wasn't quite as past it as at first thought and started flapping (fortunately it was in a plastic bag).
... a severe case of OWL
...sorry...dodgy reference to an old Spike Milligan Sketch
*DOH*
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Question.. why do pigeons seem to explode when you hit them??
Answer...?
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Not being the sort of person who wishes to harm our dumb friends, I try to avoid adding to roadkill and in 32 years' driving I think my total is 2 rabbits, 1 pheasant and just a handful of smaller birds and mammals. Quite a clean record. I ease off or toot at birds in the road (no, I don't mean girls!).
My opinion is that seagulls and crows ALWAYS get out of the way, even if they hang on until the last second. I've never seen either as roadkill. Magpies do get hit though, and pheasants. Pigeons have a habit of launching themselves at your windscreen from the hedgerows!
Cheers, SS
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My "best" was hitting a pigeon at quite some speed, driving a newish Mark 4 Cortina estate while being tailgated. Bird got minced as it got caught in the propshaft.
Forget slowing down or other tactics to deal with tailgaters, being splattered with feathers and little bits of pigeon works a total treat.
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When I was in teaching a few years ago a little lad came in one morning and announced.....
Sir, Sir my dad killed a pheasant with the car last night!
Oh really?
Yes Sir, he had to go right up on the verge before he managed to hit it........
Graeme
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Suicidal birds:
If you're ever driving in the southern US and come across a cortege of buzzards dining on the latest roadkill be very careful, especially if any of them are facing in your direction.
A buzzard needs almost as much runway to get airborne as a B52 and makes an awful mess if you hit him.
Kevin...
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Are the birds suicidal or just a little mentally slow?. When I was learning to drive about a year ago, we were travelling on a long, straight and exposed piece of road with a 60 limit. From the left I saw what looked like a pigeon flying at the normal height above the fields. But as the road has been raised upon an embankment style construction, it is somewhat higher than the field. However, the bird did not adjust its course and flew at a right angle into the traffic. Bird ping-pong ensued, where the oncoming Clio 172 batted it with its windscreen on to my side of the road. As I had nowhere to go (single carriage way) there was no other option but to plough on, whereby I gave it a swift boot with my headlamp, resulting in it somersaulting over the roof, spraying blood and guts over the windscreen.
Volkswagen 1: Bird 0
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