I was the unwilling participant in an AABS today. I was just driving down the road doin about 40 when I saw a rather nondescript bird sitting by the side of the road. Just when I was almost past the seemingly despondant avian perpertrator, he threw himself into the path of my speeding auto. His little wings hit the windshield at my eye level and I got one glance into his beady little eye before I heard the WHUMP thump thump of his ultimate destruction.
Why oh why did he choose me to be his executioner? What do I have to do now to cleanse my karma?
I have had this happen to me as well, and it is very sad, but I don’t think this is a bad karma moment. You had no control over what the bird did.
If it does make you feel better give some money or time to your local animal shelter (most shelters would even be glad for a big bag of food or litter, check with your local one to find out what they need). I donate my time weekly and it seems to help me.
He chose you for simple reasons. In a former life, you were a taupe-breasted wrench. Rare bird, to be sure. You lived a mighty and glorious life, spanning almost 15 months. You made many other taupe-breasted wrenches happy, and hatched many a fine baby brood.
All was beautiful, until one day, when a visiting titmouse happened to look into your nighttable, and found a careworn copy of “Fear of Flying”.
You’ve been an outcast ever since. Even now, reincarnated as a homo sapien, you walk the earth with a mark upon you. Loathed by raptors worldwide and frequently the target of sparrow guano, this is but the latest example of retribution in the Boid Woild.
How to cleanse, oh how to cleanse? Perhaps leaving your entire estate to the National Audobon Society would help?
Birds are sometimes, well, birdbrained, to use a phrase.
The concept of a speeding automobile is out of their ken (although I have seen crows harass a squirrel into oncoming traffic as a quick-n-easy meal). Not too long ago, I nearly hit an osprey carrying a stick to a nest: it was flying very near to the ground across the road (one helluva big stick - probably couldn’t get any lift) and my car almost became an avian ambulance once again.
Depending on what species it was, it may have been chasing bugs across the road (some bugs tend to congregate over hot surfaces, and this swarming attracts a large number of insectivores). Result?
Good luck - Shoney’s buffet for the insectivores
-or-
Bad luck - Road kill buffet for the carrion eaters (crows, vultures and eagles).
Suffice to say, you have strengthened the overall gene pool by taking out one that was probably just wading in the shallow end.
Life happens. Death happens.
At least you haven’t had a vulture throw up in your car.
[All Quiet On The Western Front]I have killed him. I
have killed the bird. I must be a bird. I must find his wife and child, and support them.[/All Quiet On The Western Front]
Heh, this reminds me of a time when I had a bat commit suicide by impacting my windshield.
I was driving slightly over the speed limit (read 60 in a 40), down a nice curvy backroad, with fields and woods on either side of me. Well out of nowhere, as i’m coming out of this turn, comes this dark shape into the light of my headlights, and THWAP!
I see the face of the beast just as it impacts my windshield and cartwheels over the cab of my truck.
What I find humorous is trying to figure out what was going thorugh the bat’s mind as this event occured.
<bat brain radar> field…field…field…flat area…OBJECT TO LEFT OBJECT TO LEFT…WTF? THWAP!
At first I thought I was being just a little paranoid. Of course the bird didn’t choose me personally. I’m sure any car would have done the trick. It was just an unfortunate occurance nothing more.
I’m also positive that there is no way the regulars at my bird feeders would be able to find out about my unwilling involvement in the demise of one of their own. But today when I got home there were two huge crows just sitting on the fence watching me pull in the driveway. I gave them a sheepish look and boldly stepped out of my car. They both sat there and yelled (caw cawed?) at me. This has never happened before. I swear it sounded like “it was her, her”
Coincidence? I’m not as sure as I once was. All I know is that tommorow I intend to refill the bird feeders just in case…
Birds sometimes get revenge too. I know a guy who was riding a motorbike at 100km/h when he was hit in the neck by a galah (Australian parrot). Sure the bird died, but he made sure my friend never rode a motorbike again.
And you’re going to hate me for taking pleasure in this (I hated myself for it too), but once, on the same stretch of road as the galah incident, a bird walked into the road in front of me. The silly bugger decided the best escape route was straight up. It cleared my car, but didn’t clear the turbulence. I looked in the mirror and saw the bird doing these huge cartwheels in the air, and looking royally pissed off. It landed and walked away unharmed (but highly embarrassed).
My brother and I were going for a weekend backpacking trip. We get about 2/3 of the way there*, and a squirrel darts out in front of the car. I’m driving. I slow down and swerve, trying to cut around the squirrel. It must have doubled back while under my car… thump, thump… I’m not sure if I killed it or not, but it wasn’t looking too good when the van behind us ran over it too and threw it onto the shoulder of the road. At least a crow gets a good meal without the threat of oncoming traffic.
It turned out to be too muddy to backpack anyway. So we turned around and had breakfast at a Perkins. Then we went home. A 4 hour drive to run over a squirrel and have breakfast. Wooooo, what a day.
*“There” being the Charles C. Deam Wilderness in the Hoosier Nat’l Forest. If you care.
When my dad was a young lad his family would often take trips across the wide open highways of America. And it was while driving through one particularly wide open area in Texas that the windshield of his father’s car was greeted by a bird with a 6 foot wingspan. I don’t know what kind it was, if I recall it was something that’s endangered today. Anyway the windshield was absolutely ruined and had to be replaced.
