Couple weekends ago I was on a back road going 50-55mph in my Ford Contour, and there were 3 buzzards (more accurately called turkey vultures) on the right edge of the road, at the start of a right-hand curve. They normally flap off before a car gets to them, but I still took my foot off the gas. As I got closer 2 of them flapped off to the woods, but the third I guess was blocked by the wings of the first two and decided to flap down the lane facing the same direction I was travelling. At that point I had only a second or two so I slammed on the brakes. The sucker almost got enough altitude and I almost slowed down enough, but WHAP, I hit him in the ass with my windshield. Scared the crap out of me, I was afraid I’d wind up sitting in glass and blood and feathers.
He tore my driver’s side wiper blade off, it blew to the passenger side of the windshield vertically. Soon as I could I pulled over to inspect the damage, but the wiper blade was it. Of course it had to start raining to I pulled into a carwash bay just as the rain really started in and I found something to tie it back on temporarily, an old sunglasses strap like you’d wear around your neck.
Driving back home my daughter thought she saw a lump on the side of the road that was the buzzard. She asked if other buzzards would eat him, I told her probably, I didn’t know why they wouldn’t.