Animal Encounters

[ROJ]

I just got back from a 2 hour ride through the countryside. Going down a rural backroad, I saw a couple birds in a field, and one on the road eating a dead animal. By the size of them I knew they were Turkey Vultures, and the one in the road took off, as it did so, it left the road then came right back into it.. I was about 6 inches away from having that vulture clock me in the head at about 90kph (56mph). This brought on a momentary adrenaline rush followed by about 10 minutes of laughter, because I have almost taken a robin and seagull off the helmet and just missed with about the same amount fo clearance. 
  This made me wonder what kind of animal encounters, close or otherwise, that the rest of you have been involved in. Just thought I'd post and see what kind of stories the rest of you have.

[tkimmons85]

Coming home on my cx500 custom about 5 years ago I hit a monster possum. It was about 1 a.m. and I was going around a corner in my neighborhood. Then this huge nasty thing ran right out of the weeds and about 5 feet in front of me. I didnt have time to react and I clobbered it. Long story short I ended up in the other lane after my bike sort of "jumped" the possum and I almost ran off into the ditch. Thats the closest I have ever come to wrecking and being able to recover. Oh and ya he died on the scene, I couldnt save the little guy.

[happycommuter]

Well, this is more a case of me being a dumb animal, but...

A month or so back, this awful Canada goose set up nest right near my parking spot at work.  She wasn't so bad, but her husband was territorial, overprotective, and aggressive: a real animal.  Luckily he wasn't around much.

One day he was brooding in the middle of the parking lot when I pulled in, and I knew he'd cause trouble.  I figured this birdbrain could be scared away by charging straight on with 500 pounds of loud bike.  I was wrong.  The gander is very intimidating when he starts running at you with his wings spread, honking and craning his neck.  I chickened out and turned away.  Twice.

Anyway, the eggs finally hatched and they flew south or something.  I am still mocked at work because the goose made me park on the far side of the building.

[coffee_brake]

Those buzzards and turkeys that fly low off the road are nothing to play with. They shatter a windshield of a car, too. Really dangerous.
I have had a lot of close calls with the buzzards, but if you get on the horn as soon as you see them, and stay on it (while slowing and covering the brakes, of course), they ALWAYS fly away sooner.

OK, pit bull dog charges slow-moving Nighthawk on long sandy driveway. I have this technique down to an art but it never worked so well on such a mean dog: Slow even more so it can calculate its attack line just right, and just as it approaches the rear wheel (they always bite the rear wheel, it seems), pull the clutch and redline it.
I never saw a dog run away so fast!

On pavement, just speed up suddenly as they reach the rear wheel.


I hope I never meet a possum on the bike. Them things scare me. (shudder)

[MrF]

happycommuter vs. the goose is probably the funniest animal story I've heard.

Have yet to meet an animal on the bike; I've been lucky though.  Seen plenty in my car, but haven't gotten a kill on anything bigger than a squirrel (probably a good thing).  Had a lot of close calls in the plane with turkey vultures and buzzards, but managed not to suck any down.  Some of my buddies haven't been so lucky.

Down here the scariest animals (next to the gators) are javelinas (think angry, hairy, 80lb pig).  They generally try to run away, but their eyesight is so bad that if you suprise them and they freak out there's no telling which way they'll start running.

[DesignFlaw06]

Getting ready for a ride one summer day. Due some apparent communication problems, it wasn't a very organized meeting. Ended up making 2 round trips to the gas station down the street. Finally we all get together and leave for the 5th time down this street. It was at that time, the dog that had been outside the entire time finally charged us. There wasn't even so much of a bark or a whimper before. He missed me, but hit the guy behind me's back tire. I'm sure it stung the dog a bit, and luckily Joe didn't go down. But it just goes to show that animals are unpredictable. Couldn't believe it.

The more serious incidents have been the deer. I haven't hit any myself, but dad's gotten two. The first of which nearly killed him. Anyway, made for a few standing rules. 1) No riding at night. 2) ATGATT 3) Bike goes up when deer season starts. Animals are way to skiddish to begin with, especially when they're being hunted. Plus at night, they're even harder to see.

[beardking]

Have had a couple of close calls with birds on the bike, but the only time that I've ever made contact was in my Rodeo that I used to have.  Was coming home from work in a rather foul mood (rush hour traffic in Dallas will do that to you) doing about 70 or so on the tollway for the few minutes that I can actually get up that speed.  Next thing I know I see this black image out of the corner of my eye just as I hear "SPLAATTT!!!!!"  Some big bird (couldn't tell what it was by the remains) ran smack into my windshield.  When I got home it looked like my Rodeo had been part of a mass murder scenario.  Blood, feathers, and various parts and pieces were splattered all down the top of my truck.  Took me about 2 hours to get that off.

[MrF]

. . .in a rather foul mood. . .

hehehe 

[beardking]

You know, I didn't even realize that I had done that.  That's what I get for staying up past my bed time.   

[ROJ]

They are finally getting smaller.. but closer. After all these close calls it was inevitable, I pinged a goldfinch off the helmet yesterday afternoon. I tried to back off on the throttle and add a little brake.. but it didn't help any.Didn't seem to hurt the bird at all, which was kinda surprising. This has not been a good week, go riding to calm down and end up scaring the crap out of myyself. I guess I should stop riding on back country roads.

[Bumblebee]

Deer and such are common risks here especially in the late evening or after dark. I've grabbed the brake quite a few times as a precaution when my instincts said slow down. Sometimes I never see the threat but I listen to my instincts anyway. Other times I see them after dumping speed or just before slowing.

Real early in the morning just before sunrise a big something with wings suddenly appears to the left out of the bushes as I take off from a traffic signal light. Hawk or eagle or something that size. I duck down behind the windscreen as far as I can as he pancakes across the windscreen and slid off the upper right side.

Puttering along at 20mph through a park with lots of dense trees on both sides of the road. A magpie comes out of the tree line on the right 90 degrees off my path of travel 5ft off the ground at somewhere near redline. We're way way too close together looking straight at each other on a collision course. He spots me and immediately pitches nose up and backwings like crazy trying to avoid impact as I started to reach for the brakes. The little guy must have pulled 10 g's in that maneuver. About then he stalled one wing and did a classic over the top spin entry. He just barely missed the ground during the spin recovery procedure. I bet he never crossed the road through the trees like that again.

Cruising along at 50mph next to a big open field in the mountains. There were probably 100 elk in the field and quite a few were right next to the fence that was a few feet from the edge of the road. A few seconds later I was still passing the elk when I realized that the fence stopped but they didn't. They stayed in the grass however I still grabbed a big handful of front brake to reduce the closing velocity.

I got center punched by a humming bird at 60mph near the bottom of the windscreen just above the headlight. It made a big goo and red V shape a good ways up the windscreen and some on the helmet. I had to stop for that one. Yick.


The scariest one was in a Cessna 152. I just lifted off and had just started to climb when a whole bunch of egrets came out of the deep grass on the right side and crossed the runway in front of me. I was maybe 20ft AGL and pushed to avoid the biggest mass of them. They went over, under and on both sides of me. At least one went through the triangle formed by the wingstrut, fuselage and wing. I flew an abbreviated pattern and landed to check things out. We seemed to have missed each other but it was close.
  Another time I had a coyote jump out as I was rolling out in the Cherokee 180 maybe 2 seconds after nosewheel touched the ground. He disappeared under the nose then came out the other side and went under the wing while I was all over the brakes and swerving. How he missed the prop or wheel strut I'll never know. I don't know who scared who the most that day.

[Puppysnake]

I have two critters to my credit, both of them on my old 700S. Riding back down from the mountains after visiting my brother, who used to live in Giant Forest up in the Sierra Nevadas, it was after dark when I left. After being on the road for about 30 minutes, still winding through the trees on the curvy road, I came around a bend and saw a tiny light in the distance. As I got closer, it turned into two tiny lights. I realized it was the eyes of a critter, but I couldn't make out what it was. Then I saw it was a white rabbit. I slowed down, hit the horn. It jumped about a bit, then turned and started to run off the road into the trees. I figured it was gone, so I got back on the throttle. At the last second, it ran back into the road right in front of me. I couldn't avoid it. My right footpeg hit it in the head, hard enough to knock my foot off the peg. I didn't stop, I knew it was dead, and I wanted to get home. I just chalked it up as my first road kill.

The second one was also on the way home from the same place, but a different trip. It was afternoon and I had gotten down from the mountains and was cruising through the foothills before getting back to town. On a long straight piece of road, I saw a big black crow swoop down and start flying around right above the road in front of me. The horn didn't help this time, it kept flying right above the road. I couldn't tell if it was flying towards me or away from me, but it stayed right in my path. I think it started flying towards me, because the distance suddenly closed much faster than I thought it would. I tried to avoid it, but it seemed that no matter how I manouvered, it changed to keep itself right in front of me. At the last second, I realized I was going to hit it, so I braced for impact. It turned out to be a real big bird. It smacked into the clutch cylinder hard enough to jolt the handlebars, flipped over the top of the cylinder and slid up my arm (wearing a leather jacket) and over my shoulder. I looked in the mirror and saw it do a tail spin and fall dead in the road behind me.

Nighthawk 1; Crow 0

[rotorhead]

I ride my 700 to work on a regular basis @ 0400. There is a group of deer feeding near a certain spot at I-275 where it just splits off of I-75. I watch real carefully and slow down there. My worst encounter was with a gator. There is a bunch of construction going on in my area and I guess this guy was headed for a better pond.He didn't start onto the rode until I rounded the corner. I was more scared of of him than he of I. I can still hear his claws scraping the pavement.

[Hondo]

Deer # 1 - coming up over a climbing right turn Bambi jumped in front of me and stopped to see what was up. This was about 40 feet in front of me and I was going around 45 mph on my '85 Honda Nighthawk 650. Another emergency stop and I ended up with my front wheel 2 feet from the ribs of Bambi, who was just staring at me. I yelled at the deer and she performed the spastic deer on ice dance then scampered away.



Deer # 2 - Coming out of a blind curve in a canyon near Denver, I accellerated that Nighthawk up to 50 mph when I saw an oncoming car flash it's lights. I started braking, looking for trouble - next thing I see are 2 deer in the road about 10 feet apart. I was braking hard but it was obvious to me that I was either going to hit one or go around them. The shortest & easiest route for me was to split them, so that's what I did. I rode into the next town to contemplate what just happened over a bottle of Gatorade.



Both deer incidents happened around 3 pm in the summer, when deer are normally least active.

[Puppysnake]

I yelled at the deer and she performed the spastic deer on ice dance then scampered away.

 

[Steve E]

I ran over a small(rat terrier type) dog lengthwise with a dirt bike I had and it only made the bike wiggle a little, dead doggie though.
My other "encounter" was going up Hwy 341 in rural Mississippi at about 65 mph when a Meadow Lard flew up out of the Clover all along the road, it flew up from the right side of the road and went under my arm and hit me in the upper right chest. The impact with the bird caused my right hand to come off the throttle and made me lean way back which caused me to veer into the left lane of the highway(fortunately nothing was coming) almost to the grass on the other side. I managed to stop and check out my chest and it had a big whelp and was red. Couldn't find the bird but it was no doubt dead. The next day I awoke to a very large area of my right chest bruised. For a long time after anytime I saw a bird near the road I would tense up. I was riding a 1973 Yamaha 750.

                          Steve E..........

[FAITHBIKER]

Just before I got my Nighthawk, I was driving my Ford Escort home from work.  It was that time of day where the light is fading enough that it was harder to see the deer, but not dark enough to see its eyes.  I still remember the look of the tiny Bambi a split second before hitting it (alright don't have any deer dudes up there, but this is about right).  Did little damage thankfully to the car, but the deer was so small it got launched across the road to the other side.  My wife probably thinks that I should have reconsidered buying a bike after that accident, but screw that!  I'm all about riding, just gotta be careful on those back roads I guess. 

[Rusty B]

Way back when I got my first bike, a CB350 Twin.
I was out on the highway east of Houston, at about 50mph.
A very large grasshopper came from the right side of the road and hit in the center of my chest.
It felt like a brick, and left a bruse like a baseball.
The next day I purchased a new windshield for the bike.

Rusty

[Snoopy]

On 4/23 my best friend was on his way home from work, he it a deer at 50... had his gear on, flipped over the handlebars but didnt make it.   He was a great man and will be missed.   Worst part about it is the bike didnt hardly have a scratch on it.

[Moedad]

Way back when I got my first bike, a CB350 Twin.
I was out on the highway east of Houston, at about 50mph.
A very large grasshopper came from the right side of the road and hit in the center of my chest.
It felt like a brick, and left a bruse like a baseball.
The next day I purchased a new windshield for the bike.

Rusty

Holy crap, that must've been a HUGE grasshopper! Everything is big in Texas?

[Moedad]

On 4/23 my best friend was on his way home from work, he it a deer at 50... had his gear on, flipped over the handlebars but didnt make it.   He was a great man and will be missed.   Worst part about it is the bike didnt hardly have a scratch on it.

That sucks. Stupid deer.

[LuminousPube]

Sorry to hear that Snoopy

I have only hit already dead things and Bugs over her in the UK.

I had an encounter with a BIG OL' BUMBLEBEE though that hit my square in the cheek.  Hurt like getting shot with a BB gun.  My own fault doing 40 with the visor up i spose.

And I hit a "fresh" fox one eve on the way back from my mums, was on an A road i was doing about 60 on my 125 cruiser.  there were blood splats and little fur bits on the headlights and me.

[750Sparks]

Nothing so dramatic as most of these, just kind of amusing. One fine summer day I was returning to work, on my 500, after lunch and at about 45mph I saw something in the air ahead of me. It was one of those moments when time slows down and I realized what I was seeing was a large bumble bee flying the same direction as I was riding. I wasn't too concerned as I was wearing my full-face helmet, but the bee was at just-below-adamsapple elevation. I felt the impact and thought "that wasn't too bad". By the time I made it to work my chinstrap felt a little snug. Well, after a visit to the bathroom mirror I extracted the little beastie's stinger from my throat and breathed easier after a couple hours.

[fishmeister]

                 
                   I was changing my oil Sat. and had one sharing it's company with   
                    me the whole time. Of course i figured The Bee sent him.

[Bumblebee]

I was changing my oil Sat. and had one sharing it's company with me the whole time.

Occasionally I'll be stopped at a traffic signal or stop sign in the summer months and have them come up and fly around me until I take off. I guess they like yellow. One day I had probably 6-8 of them flying around me like a halo or something.