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******* pigeons! They're all ****s.
Is there a stupiderer frikkin bird out there?
Why are they so nonchalant about a massive rolling metal box coming straight for them? Damn near got two bikes through the back of me head today braking for the idiot pigeon divvy twonk that thought he'd just sit there chilling until I was virtually upon him.
How I didn't see a puff of feathers I'll never know.
Pigeons. Total cockwombles. 🕊🕊
Their reactions are many times faster than ours, what looks close to us isn’t to them. Just carry on as normal you (probably) won’t hit them.
Now... seagulls, that’s another matter.
Pheasants.
That is all.
I like Wood Pigeons and Doves.. those Grey things though are a bit bonkers.
Why are you braking for a rat with wings ...
Just don’t brake for them they won’t cause much damage if you hit them.
Oh ..Im totally with Essel on this one ...the Pheasant is truly the dumbest bird in the world !
There's a pigeons nest in a conifer just over our fence, on the neighbours' side. I've not been able to poke them with the sweeping brush handle, yet.
Noisy little cherubs, they are!
Is there a stupiderer frikkin bird out there?
Yes.
…the Pheasant is truly the dumbest bird in the world !
Only one intellectual step above single-celled organisms. I believe there are bacteria and viruses smarter than the average pheasant.
But then, pheasants aren’t bred for brains, they’re bred to be easy to shoot by city types who would struggle to hit an aircraft hanger, let alone a barn door.
We had an experience with a stupid Seagull in Bournemouth many years ago.
Slow moving traffic and the gulls were on the road eating scraps of food. We trundle along, gull disappears from view and we assume it had moved out the way.
It wasn't until we felt the bump and what sounded like a popping sound and we looked out the rear window to see a very flat gull.
Can still hear that sound to this day.
Stupid bird.
Pheasants.
That is all.
Yup. Almost had one through the windscreen last week.
And remember, if you hit one you have to leave it, but you can pick up birds that have been hit by another car.
Get a few every season on the way up to ser friends on Exmoor. There's a couple of areas where they literally throw themselves out of the undergrowth at you. Just watch the car in front, and if it's a clean knock then it's pheasant for dinner.
Is it really true about the second car collecting the pheasant ? I thought it was an urban (ha) myth?
Anyone who thinks Gulls are stupid has obviously never been to St Ives.
Tourists with chips and ice creams and pasties are constantly outwitted by them.
Is it really true about the second car collecting the pheasant ? I thought it was an urban (ha) myth?
Growing up in the country this was always the 'rule', but I'm not sure if it's legally defined.
AFAIK, if you knock something down and then pick it up, you could technically be accused of poaching, but it would be very unlikely. If the vehicle in front of you knocks something down you are perfectly able to pick it up without fear of prosecution as you're just clearing a dead animal off the road. If you then happen to eat it, so be it 😉
Probably only get 1-2 birds a year like this, but none at all last year. However, a couple of years ago a mate came round with a deer he'd seen knocked down by a 4x4, which then sped off. We called my friend Bruce (woodsman and all round Ray Mears type) and a bit of butchery later we all had a nice haul of venison.
I once rolled a car avoiding a ruddy bird.
However, a couple of years ago a mate came round with a deer he’d seen knocked down by a 4×4, which then sped off.
Neighbour picked a deer off the road in similar circumstances, tried letting the blood when he got home but didn't have a sharp enough knife so end up cutting it's head off with a chain saw - bit messy but very tasty 😀
I once rolled a car avoiding a ruddy bird.
Ahh, a duck?
Picked up a flying into the upstairs window victim tgis week. They don't weigh much at all...no need to brake or swerve if its car damage that you're worried about.
i know that its sometimes difficult to override empathetic insticts though
I’ve got a hole in my plastic rad grill thanks to a pigeon, and another thanks to a pheasant. 20,000 miles a year of country roads means a bird strike or two are inevitable. I don’t brake and I sure as hell don’t swerve. Better them than me!
mind you, 2 dear in the last 7 years as well, they DO make a mess.
I once sat on a train station platform, think it was somewhere in australia, and watched a pigeon walk down some stairs along the entire length of platform and back again.
I just wanted to shout, YOU CAN ****ING FLY!!!
Yeah as mentioned think their vision and reaction time is 10 times faster than ours, so calm down, and try your best to hit them next time, speed up, bet you don't! 😆
Out the back garden I've some wild pigeons kicking about, how come they are much nicer than the town centre variety? (not like I stay out in the sticks either mind.)
When I retire i'm going to open a sanctuary/rehabilitation centre for urban pigeons with manky clubfeet/missing toes etc!
I once rolled a car avoiding a ruddy bird.
My brother has a stuffed pinemartin hanging in his hall, roadkill.
Girl swerved to avoid it but managed a worst case scenario of killing the beastie and putting the car in the ditch to boot!
Totally agree on pheasants. Everything about them just screams kamikaze idiot bird. I agree that they seem to appear out of the undergrowth and home in on the nearest vehicle. They even have a stupid walk. Makes me chuckle every time I see one.
The urban pigeons are like the tracksuit wearing teenage gangs of the bird world. A couple of tiers down from the organised criminal avian masterminds that make up the Jackdaw gang.
Pheasants are bred to die. That is their only purpose, well not their only purpose, they need to breed before dying.
I regularly hit pheasants on the way to and from work. Most will either not move, but occasionally I’ve had a few suicidal ones. Stand by the roadside and at the last possible moment stick their head under the wheels.
Pidgeons actually pop (quite loudly) if you drive over them.
Their innards also make a mess when sprayed onto shop windows after said pop.
IME anyway
I see so many dead pheasants by the side of the road driving to and from Cornwall, it seems it’s only a matter of time before I get one through either the windscreen or side window, neither of which I’d look forward to, having to deal with the office people. Although I’ve had three windscreens cracked by flying debris, so I guess it wouldn’t make much difference. Just messier. I really don’t want a badger or a deer, and I see a fair few of those as well.
At least badgers and deer have some sense.
I'm pretty sure that most of the dead badgers you see by the roadside have been dumped after being gassed or shot.
I once saw a pheasant pecking at its own reflection in a mirror.
I would not be shocked to find that there are no pheasant left to shoot, there was always a dead one every few yards when i was using A64 round York regularly ( none by me ). shooters must have been crap to miss that many
Ps RAnt started well needs more caps and sweary stuff, tailed off a bit towards the end. 6/10
shooters must have been crap to miss that many
The GWCT reckon 35 million are released each year (some estimates go as high as 50 million). This mass rearing and then controlled release may contribute to their seeming ability to aim direct at cars since they are brought up in an artificial environment and then thrown enmass into the wild just in time for someone to try and blast them to pieces.
Ps RAnt started well needs more caps and sweary stuff, tailed off a bit towards the end. 6/10
Noted, thank you.
The pigeon in question here would certainly have been a goner had I not bought forth the awesome braking power of my fully loaded Berlingo. It might have faster reaction times than me but it was tickling me sump..
Anyway, surely pigeons reaction times are mitigated by them being dicks.
While we're there, the stupid twonks can stop shitting all over my shed too. The table there gets covered in the stuff. Probably from the disproportionate amount of food they scarf from the bird tables.
Pigeons. ****s.
I think you would be unlucky to have one crack your windscreen Count Zero ..they weigh nothing at all and seem to have a morbid fascination with checking the amount of tread left on your tyres instead ..
I've also held that theory ajantom for quite some time regarding badgers ..and every farmer I ask about it just gives me a wry smile and a knowing look..
I hit a young deer last year (autumn) at dusk which made quite a mess of my front bumper & grill..it seemed to have the same suicidal tendencies of a pheasant as it came from nowhere ..with zero chance of avoiding it ..I was just glad it was no bigger as it could well have been sitting on my lap..having taken a direct line through the windscreen ..
I think you would be unlucky to have one crack your windscreen
I can confirm that a pigeon that appears from a roadside hedge and is accelerated from 0-60mph by a car's windscreen, will in fact smash that windscreen
Probably from the disproportionate amount of food they scarf from the bird tables.
Pigeons. ****s.
I used to love watching the birds feed in my garden, including a pair of fat wood pigeons. Then the ASBO Jackdaws moved in and stole all the food every, single, day. It was costing a fortune so I had to stop.
Jackdaws. Bastards
Rugbydick...I was answering Countzero with regard to Pheasants ..0-60 in two days would be about right methinks 😁
Had a pheasant try and take me on the other day. As I was bearing down on him he just reared up at me flapping his wings as if to say "Want some, yeah? Come on then!" Normally, my hippy instincts would get the better of me and I would do what I could to avoid any vehicular / avian numpty interface but as I didn't like his attitude and the fact I was doing 50mph with three and a half thousand ton of train behind me, well, "Challenge accepted, ya feathery prick".
😁🤣😂
For pathetic aggression, try a randy grouse. There is one specimen on my local loop who doesn't take well to me entering his 'territory', and runs alongside the bike trying to peck my shoes for a hundred yards or so. Every time.
Ever tried to kick a pigeon? Even if you target one with one eye and a limp you still can't do it.
Ever tried to kick a pigeon? Even if you target one with one eye and a limp you still can’t do it.
I've not, no. However I shall try this evening should I meet one. ****s.
Anyone who thinks Gulls are stupid has obviously never been to St Ives.
Tourists with chips and ice creams and pasties are constantly outwitted by them.
That's just a measure of relative intelligence rather than absolute stupidity.
Well the pigeon on the way home on Friday also didn't out smart the car. No damage this time though!
I swear Pigeons & Seagulls enjoy playing chicken, I always end up braking at the last minute and every time I say "next time I'm not going to and it's your own stupid fault if you don't fly off in time" but I always end up braking - I guess it means they're probably more intelligent than me, or at least better at playing chicken.
I swear Pigeons & Seagulls enjoy playing chicken
I believe the term is genus-fluid
Petty revenge is the best revenge!
what's worse than pigeons is the c**** who feed them bread at my local green where there are signs saying don't feed them.
they should start offering money for their carcasses.
my mate once had one go through his bike wheel - thing exploded, taking a few spokes with it.
I often wonder what the better sport would be.. pigeon tennis or pigeon golf.
Definitely tennis as they’d survive a couple of whacks.
Their reactions are many times faster than ours, what looks close to us isn’t to them. Just carry on as normal you (probably) won’t hit them.
That was literally not the case this morning. Van -1, Pigeon - 0
RIP dumbass pigeon idiot.
I ripped a pheasant in half a few years back.
A303
70mph
Car in lane 1 missed it - I didn’t.
Well I thought I had.
Bastard took the roof bar off the car as he landed in two parts.
I'll just leave this here:
Working on a silo top conveyor system in a veg. oil factory a few years ago, one of the inspection hatches was open. Pigeon puts his head in to look for grain, (place was infested with the dirty bastards) and instantly get chopped in the head by the chain and drawn in. Another one nearby noticed his mate disappear, wandered over and looked in the same hole to see where his mate went*. Chomp! Same outcome.
(*Answer is actually in the grain silo, then through the presses and processed into bottles. 🤮
I swear Pigeons & Seagulls enjoy playing chicken
I believe the term is genus-fluid
Gander-fluid?
Oh ..Im totally with Essel on this one …the Pheasant is truly the dumbest bird in the world !
Not until all the peacocks die. Pheasant s are bloody genius in comparison.
I've hit a couple of pigeons. Hit one straight on in the windscreen at 70. I didn't half duck (aha) but no damage other that loads of feathers.
Next time I'd collected one in the lower air vent at the bottom of the bumper. Took some fishing out.
On the motorway recently, just saw a bird drop straight out of the sky on the opposite carriageway. Second or two later, loads of feathers in the air, then a car in hard shoulder. Smashed windscreen and a dent at the roof edge. God knows what that was. Big bird ?
Driving through Southend in my Beetle in 91/92, about 30mph. A pigeon flapped down towards the road directly in front of the car. I still swear that his head turned, saw my apple-green VW bearing down on him and I saw the panic in his beady little eyes as he tried to put his wings in reverse. Sadly, it didn't work and he bounced off my bonnet in a massive cloud of dust, feathers and (probably) parasites. I never saw the remains of the bird. He was probably launched, naked, defeathered, into some unsuspecting XR2i convertible (Essex remember!) ten cars behind.
Hit a wood pigeon with my old Cooper S (there is a point to being specific about the car).
The fat bastard managed to disappear into the supercharger air intake - or more specifically about 2/3 of it did. The remaining 1/3 self destructed across the bonnet and windscreen.
The 2/3rds that found their way into the engine bay basically just coated everything in blood/feathers/green stuff from a full crop.
It took hours to clean up that particular mess... 🙂
This all sounds like victim blaming to me. The amount of carnage at roadsides is tragic.
Pigeons might be stupid but I’ve seen them use the London tube pretty competently 😁
I’ll add Partridges to the thick-as-pig-shit-if-not-thicker ensemble 😁
This all sounds like victim blaming to me.
Maybe they could write to their MP, or start an online petition to complain...
Please excuse the source.
Here in Aus it is kangaroos, they see a car and jump from teh verge onto the tarmac and skid sideways. Alway told never to swerve to avoid one at speed, you've a good chance of putting the car off the road and into a tree on country roads.Panel damage to the car is significantly better than the risk of serious injury or death.
Pheasants need to eat grit (grits) to help grind their food, thats why so many loiter on the edge of the road. Got lucky last weekend, was travelling with an empty horsebox and came round a bend to see two on the verge. There was no one behind me so I braked firmly and the box followed me down the road with a cloud of blue smoke and two long skid marks...whilst one pheasant ran straight in front of me (just missed it!)
On the way back the skid marks demonstrated how a locked trailer will drift significantly from the direction of the tow vehicle 🙂
Imagine the nightmare of living here.....
I live in Australia. Driving along, 500kms north of Perth, car on cruise and I see an emu cross the road a few hundred metres ahead of me. Cruise off, start covering the brake pedal in case it stops or it’s just the first one out in a bunch. 100m or so away,it stops and turns back. I slam the brakes, watching the car behind me NOT brake and the bird in front getting closer. Down to about 30 kph I pull off to the side of the road and slide through the gravel, stopping about two metres from the emu. Car behind, seemingly oblivious to me stopping hits the emu at 100kph, right in front of me. I have never seen so
many feathers as the bird literally exploded! Bloke in the third car stops, gets out and pulls the very dead emu off the road by its neck. #straya.
Many years ago I was on my way up to the drag race venue near Stratford-upon-Avon, I think it’s called Avon Park now, with a friend, we were driving along a country road with hedges either side, and a pheasant shot out of the hedge on my near side. At 50mph there was no way I could react in time and it hit the front of my car, a ‘54 split-screen Morris Minor, with one hell of a bang. There were feathers everywhere, it looked like a feather pillow had exploded! We spent the best part of twenty minutes scouring the hedges and the fields either side of the road, and under the car, and never found anything of the bird but it’s feathers. I wonder to this day just what the hell happened to it.