Bird Roadkill.

[FredPuli43]

Now here's a bit of news. Birds judge when to escape moving cars by the speed limit or, more precisely, the average speed, for cars on the road. They get killed by speeding motorists. Dr Pierre Legagneux discovered this when he hit an owl when he was travelling quite quickly down a quiet country road. Having what he described as 'an idle moment', he investigated further. His results have been published in the Royal Society's journal, Biology Letters. He says he did not hit any birds during his experiments ( and we must surely believe a PhD from the University of Quebec).

That fits my observation. Last one I hit was early morning on a by-road when I was travelling quickly. Does it fit yours?

[Milvus]

Another area is that birds get killed on motorway hard shoulders when they are newly opened for traffic (roadworks etc.) They get used to vehicles passing close without danger

[wolf63]

Does that mean that a dead bird could be admissible in court in a disputed speeding case?

[Canary42]

If he didn't hit any birds with his experiment, how has he proved anything ?

[woofgang]

Actually no it doesn't. The two birds that have splattered over the windscreen of cars that I was in were both killed when we were travelling under the speed limit, and the pheasant who dented the side of my car and wrote himself off did so when I was moving at brisk walking pace following a group of ponies.

[aelmpvw]

the faster the vehicle the less time the bird has to avoid it ... same applies to pedestrians

[heathfield]

There's an annual problem with waxwings migrating here from remote areas of Russia - they've never experienced traffic and can't judge how fast it's moving. Shame. They're beautiful little birds.

[Hypognosis]

I haven't hit any so far but I find that crows and jackdaws are the 'amber gamblers' of the bird world. They keep pecking at the road surface, even stopping to look at me approaching and then take off at the very last possible second.

Another thing I was thinking of posting a question about is why, on a country road, do the birds flee from a perfectly safe location - the right hand hedge - across my path to the left hand hedge more often than the other way around?

If you want specifics, it's usually blackbirds, chaffinches or magpies.

[SpikeyBush]

Pigeons are by far the worst offenders. They sit there in the road picking over the corpse of a fox or rabbit and leave it until the last moment to fly away. And when they do take off, instead of flying towards the side of the road they fly in the same direction I am driving. I remember once in my Vauxhall Belmont giving one a right good smack up the backside which broke my grille (and I dare say a lot more in the pigeon) it then bounced up into my wipers and broke the linkage. Bloody feathers and bits of metal everywhere, and I was taking it handy as opposed to driving like I'd sat on a wasp.

[shoota]

Erm, pigeons don't eat carrion Spike.

[SpikeyBush]

well they must have been just reading foxy-woxy the last rights then

[shoota]

Crows, magpies, jays - all the corvids eat carrion but Columbidae eat principally seeds and vegetation.