I was driving home from a series of errands today, when I come across either a starling or perhaps even a duckling (judging by the feet) which had been smacked hard by a car and lay in a twisted lump on the dotted lane divider. At first I noticed one of the legs twitching rather wildly as I approached it, but a big pickup had just gone past so I figured the slipstream was the cause. But as he and I departed the scene, with no other vehicles behind us, there was that poor pathetic little foot randomly flippimg around with no discernable reduction in speed or urgency. I wish I had put the poor thing out of its misery when I had the chance, but I’m going to be putting those tires into storage next week after I switch them for new ones (so call me selfish). It evoked in me a mixture of sadness, creeped-out-ness, and (now, as I type this) black humor about it. 
I can understand not having time to react when it happened, but if you’re ever in the situation again I say just run over it. I once accidentally hit a bird and ran over it again just to be sure it wouldn’t suffer. No harm done to the car or tires.
Don’t feel too bad. Unless it seemed to be moving purposefully, the twitching was probably just a reflex - the bird was likely dead already. That’s my understanding, anyway.
Or it could have been maggots. Maggots make carcasses move sometimes.
Oh man, that is one scene that will never leave my mind. I was driving along a rural road on the way to a job when I passed this poor little white kitten on his side trying to run but it was clear he wasn’t going to get up. I turned around as soon as I realized what it was but he was already gone when I got there. Thankfully.
I saw those little legs trying to get away for weeks in my dreams.
I’ve seen that kind of spastic twitching of an animal lying on the road before. It’s not a pretty sight.
I live in Michigan, where everyone hits the stupid whitetail deer. Once my mother and I were driving along, minding our own business. WHAM! A deer runs right into the driver side door, then rolls along the side of the car and lands in the middle of the road. There was a van behind us, and they stopped to see if we were okay, and then asked us if they could have the deer (I live in a very redneck area!) So they drug it off to the side of the road to wait for the police. So as we are waiting, I notice its leg is twitching. I felt terrible, because although I hunt, I hate to see an animal suffer like that. A few minutes later, it’s ears start to move. Ten minutes later, It lifts it’s head and looks around like, “wtf?!?” Pretty soon she just got up and ran back into the woods. It was the funnies thing ever, since we thought we killed that doe as soon as we saw her laying in the road. Happy ending! =D
About twenty years ago, my family and I are down a back road in the Ozarks to get to our cabin. I’m in the back seat playing a game when I look up at the road and see a raccoon flopping around on its back.
“Oh my god!” I exclaim. “It’s breakdancing!”
My family didn’t think it was terribly funny. I learned later that the van right in front of us had just hit it.
Tommy Boy anyone?
My husband hit a deer that had to be shot to be put out of its misery. Thankfully, he was less than a mile from the local State Police station and we knew the dispatcher and a couple of the officers. We called up the non-emergency line and told them what happened, they came out. The poor thing had at least two broken legs and was suffering. We were on a rural road and the officer was very professional about the whole thing. Apparently it was a routine enough thing that the officers were trained on the situation.
After the incident, I looked up the AVMA protocol on such a thing. It is considered humane to shoot a suffering animal provided the setting is safe and the marksman is comfortable doing it.
Hopefully you get an officer that can shoot. We live near a wildlife preserve, so there’s massive amounts of white tailed deer roaming the countryside. One guy hit a doe right in front of our house, so we all piled out at the loud crash, and were gawking when the sheriff rolled up. The deer was thrashing around in the ditch and he went over, took out his pistol and shot it. Still thrashing. Shot it again. I was aboutthisfar from going into the house and getting my own shotgun to do the job right when he finally pulled a rifle from the trunk and killed the poor thing. Then the preacher down the road came up with his flatbed trailer and hauled it away to butcher.