Scott Leffler has had a running topic on his radio talk shows on WECK and WLVL about the “Bird Wars.” They consisted of a lot of collected anecdotes to support the theory that birds, as a species, are at war with the species of man.
Conspiracy theory? Wacko talk? You might think so. I was unconvinced. Until today, when the birds turned their fury my way and made it personal.
On the way home from dropping my daughter off to school in Sanborn, and listening to Scott’s Dialog show on the radio (Coincidence? I think not.) one of them attacked my vehicle.
I’m sure it was aiming for my head, but being just a bird, it missed and instead hit my rear-view mirror square on. It made a sound like a cannon-ball had hit me and what was left of the mirror was left dangling, flapping against the side window.
Initially, I thought I may have been clipped by a vehicle going the other way, Maybe they had drifted over the yellow line and our mirrors hit. But I didn’t see another vehicle then and there was no other vehicle close by in that lane.
I pulled off onto the shoulder and when I could turn around went back. I saw the bird and wondered if it was what I hit. I went to a nearby side road and turned around again and came back to the bird on the same side of the road I had been driving on.
Sure enough, there were plenty of pieces of plastic from my mirror in the road and cars were running them over pulverizing them further as I watched.
I got out and snapped a couple photos on my cell phone. You can see the evidence here!
I don’t know what kind of bird that is, Maybe someone can tell me. It might be a small chicken. If so, it was near a barn on a farm. I wonder if it was an escapee from the chicken ranch?
I doubt it was a chicken, they’re fairly flightless. Especially the farm raised ones.
After adding in the information given to WhatBird.com, the best it’s given me is a Plover.
Good to know Plovers have it out for us.
Ouch! I had the same thing happen to my car last June, except it was a human who ran into my car door while it was parked.
In regards to birds having a vendetta against humans, there is a lovely park in my neighborhood that is full of flocks of ducks, geese, pigeons, and other assorted birds. One time I was driving through and one large goose was in the road walking around with wings outstretched loudly threatening cars. After waiting a few minutes to see if he would leave, I and a couple of other cars actually had to back up and turn around.
I also once saw wild turkeys in someone’s yard. I couldn’t believe it.
The mirror is all fixed, as good as new. It cost far less than I had expected and less than my deductable on the insurance.
The insurance company told me an adjuster would come to see the damage Monday morning. I put off taking the truck to the shop until he came to see it. He never showed, so I took the truck in the afternoon and left it to be worked on Tuesday.
Tuesday, the adjuster called. He called my home phone, cell phone, texted me, left a voice-mail and called my home phone again all within about 2 minutes. I called him back and told him where he could see the truck. I guess he looked at it, but since it was below the deductible, I just went ahead and payed for it.
While it was in the shop, I had the oil changed, brakes worked on and tires rotated. It’s all set to go to Atlanta.
There is a mockingbird in our neighborhood that thinks it owns half the block. When Abby and I walk by, it squawks at us from a low branch and then moves on to the next tree or pole until we have left its territory.