Was driving along the Ohio Turnpike this evening on my way to the Cheesecake Factory for my wifes birthday...

I see a GIANT turkey vulture get up from the median and take off... I was doing 65 and thought he would move...

BAM!

Cracked my grill...

Anyone else hit a bird or similar?

 

I was running to a hot call on a back county road once, and had a BIG owl swoop down across the hood, rode the air currents up the windshield and BLAMMO.........right into my light bar.... Cracked all the lenses and moved the bar back about 4 inches on the car...didnt find much of the owl but what feathers were stuck in the lights...at least I think it was an owl.....had to go out of service and go home for a clean uniform afterwards....

 

I hit ALOT of birds on the harvest crew last year , mostly in montana, I had never hit a bird before that , and I have never hit one since , but I probably hit 20 small birds while I was in montana. I also hit one deer , but luckily it fell just as i was about to hit it , so not much damage was done to the truck.

I have also hit two deer at home , and so far all i have is a dented licence plate and one very small dimple in the bumper.

 

DB,

I hit a bird just the other day. Nothing near as big as a Turkey though.

It was just a little blackbird and I guess he wasn't too happy with himself. He flew right across the front from left to right and plastered himself on my bumper just under the plastic top cover. I plucked what was left of him of and washed the bumper... no damage.

As for your grill, I believe it lists for around $115. I replaced mine in the mid 100K's simply because it had been chipped from so much debris over the years. I'd like to blame most of it on the NVDOT in the winter, but some of it is from the places that work takes me.

 

I was driving to meet up with some friends to head to Tennessee for spring break and hit a flock of finches. Didn't think much of it and when i cam back from my vacation there were little feet sticking out of my grill. Ive heard of people hitting turkeys, thatd scare me for sure.

 

Heh.. Center punched one on a motorcycle many years ago. Snapped the windshield off the fairing and was covered head to waist in buzzard goo. They taste about as bad as they look..

 

used to drive to work in the dark and got two spotted owls in less than a week. One cracked the windshield the other dinged a fender.
Both tasted like chicken.

 

I hit a dove once with my stack.

 

Vety thats not being "Oregonian Politically Correct" your going to have to plant three trees now cause of that. I hit two dang quail in two weeks and knockced the honey combs out of my grill not a bird but last summer coming home from a rodeo i hit a bob cat with the truck an horse trailer that was a eye opening at 3am

 

I had an owl swoop down and bounce off the hood of my truck. It was dark out, scared the crap out of me. I also had a bird catch it's leg between the headlight and front fender. Tore it clean off and streaked blood down the side of my truck. That was fun to clean off.

 

We get cars takeing turkeys through the windshield pretty often out on the freeway. I've almost grazed a few owls comeing into work this year.

 

Driving thru Kansas one night (just slightly over the speedlimit), an owl took flight and I caught it with the antenna. no damage to me, but probably sliced the bird pretty good.

 

A bird flew right by my truck on my way home once, and I thought it just flew by, but I got home and it was stuck in my bumper.

 

+1 for the owl hit. Driving back from a pull one night, see this "thing" sitting in the middle of my lane, looked sort of like a coon at a distance. I go to straddle it and at about 60' I see it's head spin completely around and look right at me... AWWW CRAP, IT'S AN OWL!!!!

Note to others, with one wing flap an owl can rise high enough off the road to hit the bottom insert panel in the grill of a 3/4 ton Dodge...

 

Now did they hit you or did you hit them? There is a difference ya know. You just may be the new local hero, now just paint your kills on the fenders. I heard they taste like rotten tree hugger.