Bird Strike

[Paul the 6th]

stoopid plucking pheasant's eh?

I had a blackbird bounce of my nearside mirror and into my chest at 60mph - pain was prolly similar to someone taking a run up and landing a punch in your chest/shoulder area..

I was covered from waist to helmet in white bird crap as well! Looked like I'd massacred the tip-ex section of staples with a shotgun

I hit one on the M54 was doing about 80 and I could see the daft thing trying to fly up out the way of the traffic, it hit me square in the face! Broke my visor and I got blood and shti down me! I did think I was gonna come off but somehow held on. It felt like someone had belted me round the head with a house brick! Not nice.

[Bri w]

Originally Posted by kwak zzr

I hit one on the M54 was doing about 80 and I could see the daft thing trying to fly up out the way of the traffic, it hit me square in the face! Broke my visor and I got blood and shti down me! I did think I was gonna come off but somehow held on. It felt like someone had belted me round the head with a house brick! Not nice.

Jeez, you were lucky.

A friend of mine broke his neck when he hit an Owl. Sadly they both died.

[Supervox]

Originally Posted by Fruity-ya-ya

Nice, hope you got off & picked it up for the pot.

That's illegal - you cannot take your own 'kill' - but someone else can !

I've had 2 bird strikes - both when I had my old 1200 GS

(1) On the way to an Org meet at Boxhill when a crow (I think) flew straight across the M25 and got decapitated by the 'beak' on the front of my bike leaving it's headless body stuck to my handguard twitching like crazy & leaving the front of my bike covered in blood.

(2) During a ride around the back lanes a pheasant decided to take off from the side of the road and took out my nearside mirror - nothing left on the road other than a few feathers so I assume it survived.

Yes. It hit the bike and not me.

Your whole upper arm could be that colour or worse, the bird could have had you off. A first time hit probably has the potential to be the worst... so for a first timer, good job keeping it together.
It looks like you were hit where a bit of basic armour might have saved you the bruising.

FWIW, we've had a wet year, which means bird numbers have exploded. I've hit a good number of birds (and bats) up to about 0.75kg, mainly on the bike but a few have been on the helmet, chest and arms. I've also taken a couple on the neck brace... I really don't want to be hit in the throat by a bird.
This year I even took a hit from an apple thrown by some little snot who thought it would be funny to take a pot shots at bikers. The vehicle and individual were identified by the on board cameras and prosecuted. A few years ago I was hit by a beer bottle, fortunately with no real force. The armour saves the hurt.

My worst hit was an emu a couple of years back which had me waking up in hospital a couple of days later. It's a bird, but at 30-40kg it'd be more like you hitting a really big deer. There's something else for you to look out for.

Originally Posted by MattCollins

It looks like you were hit where a bit of basic armour might have saved you the bruising.

FWIW, we've had a wet year, .

I did have on my armour, but I won't mention the speed, but bruising was inevitable.
This was my second bird strike, first one was a blackbird that hit my bike, blood everywhere, not nice cleaning up my leathers!

Wet year in Aus? You don't say!!!

Lou

Queensland flooding? That's a more recent thing. I was actually thinking of SA, Lake Eyre and the Simpson Desert which has been wet for most of the year.