Birds playing ‘chicken’ with moving cars and getting hit

[Dave Hess]

I was driving about 30 miles per hour and getting on entrance ramp to highway.
A bird that was about 20 feet in the air swooped down on my car and got hit.

I looked at my rear view mirror and saw about 10 feathers in the air and no sight of the bird. I’ve hit a few birds and a duck over the years, they all swooped down on me.

Why do birds like to play ‘chicken’ with large moving objects ?

 

[goingplacesanddoingstuff]

I think it’s mostly just that they didn’t originally evolve to deal with large moving objects and therefore struggle with judging their relative motion.

 

[himemsys]

I think they do a lot of feeding in the fields on the sides of roads and they're just crossing the road to another feeding area. They probably need to get a little height, then dive down to minimize energy use while they fly across the road. I've hit several over the years. There's a reason for the term 'bird-brained'.

 

[jhellwig]

Most likely it was a barn swallow. They probably nest under the bridge. They swoop down and catch bugs but sometimes they miss calculate.

I used to love mowing hay in the evening. The barn swallows would follow me around getting all the bugs I stirred up.

 

[joekingcorvette]

Most likely it was a barn swallow. They probably nest under the bridge. They swoop down and catch bugs but sometimes they miss calculate.

I used to love mowing hay in the evening. The barn swallows would follow me around getting all the bugs I stirred up.

Those barn swallows come out of nowhere sometimes when I mow my lawn too. Once I am finished mowing they go somewhere else. They must be able to hear a riding lawn mower and come out for lunch. Many years ago I drove a large straight truck and it wasn't uncommon at all to destroy mourning doves early in the morning. They would sit on the highway and not even try to get out of the way.

 

[jeepman3071]

I've read that if birds know they are sick they will dive bomb cars. Not sure how true that is.

I once had a bird dive in front of my BMW at about 50 mph. I didn't see it fly away, so I figured I hit it. I reached my destination about an hour later, after my meeting I came out, and the bird was hopping around inside the grill of the car trying to get out. I was able to pop the front kidney grill out and the bird flew away. At that point it had been in the car for about an hour of driving and a 2 hour long meeting.

 

[SHOZ]

We have a summer bird here that likes to walk and run rather than fly, Killdeer. And at sunset they will play chicken with you on the road. Haven't hit one yet. They use to be on the roof of the factory I worked at and if I had t go up there at night they would fly around messing with you.

 

[Zee09]

It's crazy here this time of year. The birds are far worse than the squirrels. Most don't even try to get out of the way.

 

[billt460]

It's not so much "playing chicken", as it is bad judgement. It happens all the time out here with Quail and Roadrunners. Especially with Quail and newly hatched chicks.

They lag behind when the whole family is crossing the road. If you don't brake you'll hit the chicks because they're so much slower than mom and pop.

Roadrunners can run like hell, but in very hot weather they're lazy. But if you don't brake, they'll hit the gas and get out of your way. I've never come across a dead Roadrunner in the street that was killed by a vehicle.

In the dead of Summer Roadrunners can get too lazy to hunt unless they're starving. They'll come up to my back door looking for handouts. (That's a little meatball of raw ground beef sitting in front of him).