Windshield Owl Strike

[Dashmellow]

Driving home on a dark country road the other night something big suddenly hit my windshield and made a REALLY loud sound. Initially, I couldn't see what it was or where it came from but the sound made me think my windshield had cracked. I was pretty startled by what had just happened and it took me a few moments to get my bearings. The first thing was to figure out if my vehicle was intact.

I quickly realized I had been hit by a large bird which I first thought to be a hawk. I doubled back to see if I could find the injured bird but this required driving about a quarter of a mile further down the road to find a place to turn around. By the time I got back to where the incident had occurred I found nothing.

Finally, when I got home I reviewed the footage and discovered that it was a common barn owl (Tyto alba) that struck my truck. I've done some hands-on work in the past with raptors and strigiformes and these are magnificent animals but I doubt that this one survived an impact like that, so I'm bummed.

So, yet once again, I'm glad I had a dash cam that captured the event. I would still be scratching my head about what exactly happened.

 

[kamkar]

Daum not much you can do in a situation like that even if you did see it comming.

Denmark have 7 types of owl, the most common one are the horn owl with around 4-5000 pairs nesting, next up is the forest horn owl, it is more wide spread nesting in old raven or crow nests, but it is in a little fewer numbers.
The once most common owl the church owl are now close to extinct with just 20 pairs it is estimated to be gone in a few years., the biggest owl the great horn owl weighing in at around 3 kilos are down to 100 pairs and only found in Jutland.
The latest comer is the pearl owl that you can find a few pairs off nesting on our little island Bornholm south of Sweden in the Baltic sea, it is a small owl hunting mice, which is a big pray when you are just 100 Grams yourself.

Owls get around though, some times they have dropped in for a few days R&R on oil rigs far out to sea.

The one i hit in the 90ties while i was doing 150 kmh, i only heard that, and the only visible result was the almost cartoon like bend in the telescopic antenna on my Opel car at the time.

 

[Nigel]

It is that time of year when the young move to new territories, often too close to roads, it was likely to get hit by someone else if you hadn't hit it first.

Barn Owl Hazards: Major roads

www.barnowltrust.org.uk

Our Barn Owl numbers have been rising in recent years, nearly tripled since their low point (numbers in that article are out of date), possibly they have evolved to either avoid or take more care on roads, it seems it is now only the faster roads that they have trouble with.

 

[Dashmellow]

Daum not much you can do in a situation like that even if you did see it comming.

Denmark have 7 types of owl, the most common one are the horn owl with around 4-5000 pairs nesting, next up is the forest horn owl, it is more wide spread nesting in old raven or crow nests, but it is in a little fewer numbers.
The once most common owl the church owl are now close to extinct with just 20 pairs it is estimated to be gone in a few years., the biggest owl the great horn owl weighing in at around 3 kilos are down to 100 pairs and only found in Jutland.
The latest comer is the pearl owl that you can find a few pairs off nesting on our little island Bornholm south of Sweden in the Baltic sea, it is a small owl hunting mice, which is a big pray when you are just 100 Grams yourself.

Owls get around though, some times they have dropped in for a few days R&R on oil rigs far out to sea.

The one i hit in the 90ties while i was doing 150 kmh, i only heard that, and the only visible result was the almost cartoon like bend in the telescopic antenna on my Opel car at the time.

We have 11 species of owls here in Vermont including the great horned and the snowy owl. With the exception of the barred owl you don't often see them as they are nocturnal and very stealthy.

One of the amazing things about owls is the way their feathers are designed which is different from any other species of bird. Owls have a unique adaptation where the feathers on the leading edge of the primary wing have a hair-like comb of tiny spikes called fimbriae that break up the air turbulence during flight into little groups called micro-turbulences which muffles the sound of airflow. So, unlike in normal bird flight where the air flowing over the wing creates turbulence that makes a gushing or whooshing sound, owls are completely silent in flight.

We used to do a presentation in a kid's nature workshop I participated in where we would pass around the wing from a crow and ask the kids to flap it up and down as fast as they could. The crow wing would always make a loud whooshing sound. Then we had a wing from a barred owl that we passed around with the same instructions. No matter how hard or fast you would flap the wing up and down it was always absolutely silent. When an owl swoops down on unsuspecting prey the victims don't hear it coming.

 

[DT MI]

...owls are completely silent in flight.

To me that's one of the most interesting things about owls (and bats) - it's almost unnerving when you see, but not hear, it in person.

 

[Dashmellow]

To me that's one of the most interesting things about owls (and bats) - it's almost unnerving when you see, but not hear, it in person.

Yeah, the classroom demonstration is really amazing because you get to be in control of the motion and experience it for yourself. Some of the kids would go really wild flapping the owl wing up and down but they could never get a sound out of it. It was a great presentation because it really got the kids engaged and interested.

 

[Nigel]

100% silent, and doesn't even cause enough draft to disturb a feather on the ground:

 

[Dashmellow]

100% silent, and doesn't even cause enough draft to disturb a feather on the ground:

Yes, I've seen that presentation from the BBC here on public TV. It's a wonderful, very definitive demonstration.

 

[kamkar]

Yeah they are truly death from above those owls.

 

[SawMaster]

No helping something like this. Even replaying after seeing exactly where to look showed there was no time to react From the looks of things your a-pillar probably blocked the view for most of the time you see the bird in the video.

I've been dodging deer around here, nothing really close so far but with the winter cold finally arriving they are active earlier in the evening, later in the morning, and much more out there at night. Plus I've been driving during those hours more. I've seen seven in the last 4 days, probably that many more in the week before. Not watching the pavement as I drive now but the forests on both sides and at a much reduced speed

Phil

 

[Dashmellow]

No helping something like this. Even replaying after seeing exactly where to look showed there was no time to react From the looks of things your a-pillar probably blocked the view for most of the time you see the bird in the video.

I've been dodging deer around here, nothing really close so far but with the winter cold finally arriving they are active earlier in the evening, later in the morning, and much more out there at night. Plus I've been driving during those hours more. I've seen seven in the last 4 days, probably that many more in the week before. Not watching the pavement as I drive now but the forests on both sides and at a much reduced speed

Phil

Yeah, I didn't see it coming at all, even though the camera did. The whole thing happened so fast that I never saw anything at the point of impact where the bird first hit the glass. For the first few seconds I was scanning for damage and trying to figure out what had just occurred. My first thought was my windshield had cracked and the only thing I actually saw very briefly was a sort of checkered pattern right behind my rear view mirror which I assumed to be feathers. Apparently, that was where the bird ended up right before it went up and over my roof. Today I found some skid marks from that in the dirt on my truck roof.

Lots and lots of deer on my property and pretty much everywhere I go. Traditional rifle hunting season just ended but it is now muzzleloader season until December 13th so the deer are very active. I see them crossing the roads often but usually it isn't too much of a problem at the speeds people drive on the back roads. Most of the deer fatalities seem to happen on the interstate highway where people are driving too fast and the deer get confused by the fast cars and headlights.

 

[kamkar]

It was probably blocked by your A pillar, at least when it got near enough to be lit up a little and so visible.

Here we do have signs in places where deer often cross the road, so you will have a triangle / caution sign ( warning signs ) with a deer silhouette on and then say 200 M - 1Km
But i think the same is also the case in the US.

so translated to Amerikanski that sign is "caution" risk of deer crossing for the next 3/4 mile

 

[Dashmellow]

It was probably blocked by your A pillar, at least when it got near enough to be lit up a little and so visible.

Here we do have signs in places where deer often cross the road, so you will have a triangle / caution sign ( warning signs ) with a deer silhouette on and then say 200 M - 1Km
But i think the same is also the case in the US.

so translated to Amerikanski that sign is "caution" risk of deer crossing for the next 3/4 mile

I think you are right about the A-pillar. I didn't see anything coming at me.

Yeah, we have those signs too. They usually look like these. They have them for moose and other critters depending on the location. I had a large bull moose come marching across my back yard this summer. I could feel the vibrations from his hoof steps coming right through the ground and he was maybe 30 feet away. He was a BIG animal! The problem in a rural area like where I live is that the animals are everywhere so there is no single corridor where they try to cross the roads like on major highways.

 

[Nigel]

Ours are always going in the other direction!

 

[kamkar]

No moose here, aside if one swim over from Sweden, which have happened before, but there is talks about putting out Bison in several places,,,,, fenced off places, though i dont think that matter much for a full grown bison.


Sorry my brain just kicked in gear, we have moose going in a area called lille vildmose not far north of where i live, but that is also a fenced in area i think.
If not fenced in it will probably be too much for little Danish brains to fathom, just the wolf re appearing here have split people, and i have a sneaky feeling late poisonings of eagles was actually bait for wolf.
Though a few places with pheasant hunting are bitching about eagles taking their birds.

"In November 2015 five moose calves arrived in Lille Vildmose. The job of the new arrivals from Sweden will be to roam the areas, munching on trees and shrubs, helping to create a more varied landscape and the recovery of the bog. The animals are confined to a relatively small paddock until May/June 2016, when they will be released into a larger area (2100 hectares) encircled by a 30 kilometre fence open to visitors of the bog. "

 

[Dashmellow]

Ours are always going in the other direction!

That's odd, animals have been known to cross the roads from either side.

But yes Nigel, signage location is determined by the side of the road one drives on.

 

[Nigel]

Your owl didn't seem to understand the rules though, it came from the same side as our animals

 

[Dashmellow]

No moose here, aside if one swim over from Sweden, which have happened before, but there is talks about putting out Bison in several places,,,,, fenced off places, though i dont think that matter much for a full grown bison.


Sorry my brain just kicked in gear, we have moose going in a area called lille vildmose not far north of where i live, but that is also a fenced in area i think.
If not fenced in it will probably be too much for little Danish brains to fathom, just the wolf re appearing here have split people, and i have a sneaky feeling late poisonings of eagles was actually bait for wolf.
Though a few places with pheasant hunting are bitching about eagles taking their birds.

"In November 2015 five moose calves arrived in Lille Vildmose. The job of the new arrivals from Sweden will be to roam the areas, munching on trees and shrubs, helping to create a more varied landscape and the recovery of the bog. The animals are confined to a relatively small paddock until May/June 2016, when they will be released into a larger area (2100 hectares) encircled by a 30 kilometre fence open to visitors of the bog. "

My neighbor keeps Llamas. I keep expecting them to get loose one of these days.

 

[Dashmellow]

Your owl didn't seem to understand the rules though, it came from the same side as our animals

Like I said, they cross the roads from either side because they just don't care. Not sure I've ever seen an owl crossing sign though.

 

[kamkar]

Thats one animal you will not want to get in the face off, at least not unless you are wearing goggles and have tissue at hand.