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General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: oldbike54 on July 04, 2016, 08:39:40 PM
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WOW ! Just took a short ride in crepuscular light , had a very LARGE owl take off from my left . He , or she , just barely made enough altitude to clear the Aerofoil . Swear I could hear its wings beating the wind as it passed over . Dog , amazing stuff , even if a bit disconcerting :laugh:
Dusty
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"crepuscular"- good job!
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Yikes!
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Glad it was just an Oh My moment instead of an Oh S*&# moment.
GliderJohn
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Dusty: Gotta remember, owls are crepuscular birds.
Personally, I've never had a close encounter with an owl on a bike. Many, many close calls with big vultures in the south and west.
Probably the worst bird I've ever tangled with is my wife's talking African Grey parrot. She is a sarcastic little beast, with a sick sense of humor. You can tell pretty quickly that birds are basically dinosaurs. A T-Rex would have the same kind of humor.
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I agree John . Experience would indicate that crepuscular conditions are often when wildlife is very active , so slowing down is a habit formed from that knowledge .
Dusty
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Dusty: Gotta remember, owls are crepuscular birds.
Personally, I've never had a close encounter with an owl on a bike. Many, many close calls with big vultures in the south and west.
Probably the worst bird I've ever tangled with is my wife's talking African Grey parrot. She is a sarcastic little beast, with a sick sense of humor. You can tell pretty quickly that birds are basically dinosaurs. A T-Rex would have the same kind of humor.
:laugh: :laugh: Obviously ,
Dusty
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The gentleman teaching me restoration killed an owl a month or 2 ago riding home from work :sad:
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A frenetic moment indeed!
And a clsoe call!
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If you are in the southeast either a great horned owl or barred owl are the two likely candidates....
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If you are in the southeast either a great horned owl or barred owl are the two likely candidates....
Are "Barred" Owls not allowed in certain establishments :huh: :grin:
Am in the corner of NW Arkansas at the moment , hard to tell , think it was a Great Horned owl .
Dusty
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the aftermath of a cockatoo-strike on the brake lever of Pete's yellow 2V Griso...
(http://www.dankalal.net/2007trip15/photo322.JPG)
I'm guessing a yellow bike with a yellow duffle-bag was the last thing that bird ever saw.
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Are "Barred" Owls not allowed in certain establishments :huh: :grin:
Dusty
Haha somebody is in a good mood.....I like you like this.
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Haha somebody is in a good mood.....I like you like this.
My normal mood is good , except when my Indian gets up :laugh:
Dusty
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My normal mood is good , except when my Indian gets up :laugh:
Dusty
Is that what you call it?? I'm in a great mood when my "Indian" gets wet! LOL!!!!
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So owls are dinosaurs of the crepuscular period?
I nearly dodged a owl on highway 12 in eastern Washington years ago. It broke the windshield and took out the right post, antenna, and mirror on my '69 vw van. I stopped and sent my birdy springer to find it. He couldn't -- that owl had ruined my van and kept on going.
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Wow, this belongs in the lightening strikes twice thread. Very recently, riding a country road during mid day, I spotted a large bird in the road. I began to slow and much to my surprise, it was a fairly large owl. He/she was near the edge of the other side but took off as I got near and flew right toward me. I ducked and thankfully, we missed one another. It had to been by a hairs breath though.
John Henry
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So owls are dinosaurs of the crepuscular period?
I nearly dodged a owl on highway 12 in eastern Washington years ago. It broke the windshield and took out the right post, antenna, and mirror on my '69 vw van. I stopped and sent my birdy springer to find it. He couldn't -- that owl had ruined my van and kept on going.
Active at twilight
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Reminds me of an encounter I had 41 years ago. I was riding along a county back road on my Suzuki GT380 in the western suburbs of Chicago. Out of the side bushes comes a pheasant. Ducked and it struck the top of my helmet. Hate to think what a full face impact would have been like.
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I've had a close encounter with a turkey buzzard that was chowing down on something dead on the shoulder of a two lane road. It got spooked by the MAC 2-1 exhaust on the bike in front of me. It was so full of dead animal it couldn't get any lift. I swerved and ducked and it's wing brushed my helmet. Man, those things are massive (and ugly) up close!
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WOW ! Just took a short ride in crepuscular light ...
I bet that encounter got your corpuscular fluids flowing!
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. I stopped and sent my birdy springer to find it. He couldn't -- that owl had ruined my van and kept on going.
Maybe that's why the other got banned - hit and run! (hit and fly?)
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The day I picked up my stelvio from the dealer I was 1/4 mile down the road with trees on both sides and saw something out of the corner of my right eye. looked over and a Hawk swooped down and nailed my right fog light, last I saw he was rolling on the ground. I didn't stop due to traffic but when I got home had to pluck the right side of the bike.
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It was so full of dead animal it couldn't get any lift.
You were lucky. Normally in that condition, they puke it up as they take off. It's kind of nasty... :cool:
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I've got little to contribute. The Eldorado liquified a sparrow on the 125 interchange somewhere in the late eighties.
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Out in Maine I once hit a seagull square in the chest of my leather jacket hard enough to tear my hands off the grips. I was able to recover and get over to the side of the road to wait for the tears to stop. It was weeks before I could breathe deep or sneeze without wincing.
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Personally, I've never had a close encounter with an owl on a bike. Many, many close calls with big vultures in the south and west. :1:
You can tell pretty quickly that birds are basically dinosaurs. A T-Rex would have the same kind of humor.
Pelican is just a Pterodactyl with feathers.
Dave
Galveston
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I once caught a starling on my faceshield at 70 mph. It sort of exploded into a smelly mess.
However for you owl fanciers there is this.
(http://www.foresthistory.org/images/blog/spottedowlhelper_1.jpg)
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I had a bunch of near misses when I lived out in the country. The big issue was that my trip to work was perfectly timed with the 3 turkey hens that lived up the street and used the road as a glide path from their roost. I knew to look out for them but there were several close calls.
Also got between a hawk and its prey where I was perpendicular to where it was going. Lucky for both of us he past right in front of me. Not sure if he scored lunch or not.
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Ran into a flock of galahs on the back road to Wagga once and that wasn't pleasant!
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A turkey an I collided at about 45mph. He hit my right shoulder and from what the fellers riding behind say there was an impressed huge PUFF of feathers and then the turkey spinning circles behind me sliding down the road as I rode away.
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I work at LAX and was riding in on my V7R just before sunup on Aviation Blvd. Was right by the north runway where the planes come in real low to land and saw an owl out of the corner of my eye flying across the road just ahead of me. It ended up flying right over top of me and cleared my head by about 5 feet. Was pretty cool to see up close like that and was probably the only time in my 63 years that I have seen one in the wild.
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Swear I could hear its wings beating the wind as it passed over .
I doubt you heard it. Just your imagination. Owls hunt in darkness by listening for the tiny footsteps of prey. If their wings made any noise it would first startle the prey and second overstimulate their hearing. Owl feathers have fringes all along each side which cushion the rubbing of the feathers as they fly and absorb any friction produced sounds.
http://www.owlpages.com/owls/articles.php?a=7 (http://www.owlpages.com/owls/articles.php?a=7)
Patrick Hayes
Fremont CA
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Patrick , don't go messing up my perceptions with a bunch of facts :tongue:
Dusty
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I was following my buddy on his KZ1000 when we came up on a bald eagle eating at the side of road.
It took off along the road in our direction, my friend could have reached up and grabbed its feet.
Spectacular when you see one that close.
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I doubt you heard it. Just your imagination. Owls hunt in darkness by listening for the tiny footsteps of prey. If their wings made any noise it would first startle the prey and second overstimulate their hearing. Owl feathers have fringes all along each side which cushion the rubbing of the feathers as they fly and absorb any friction produced sounds.
http://www.owlpages.com/owls/articles.php?a=7 (http://www.owlpages.com/owls/articles.php?a=7)
Patrick Hayes
Fremont CA
I beg to differ. When hunting upland game I have on more than one occasion been startled by the sound of a large owl as it took off or made course changes. One Great Horned in particular took off a couple feet from me and sounded as loud as a freight train as it grabbed air for lift. They can certainly be stealthy when gliding in for a kill but when using power those massive wings make a great racket.
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Like Chuck, I have done the, oh look, bunch of vultures, bet I can scare the crap out of them by speeding up. Yep, they took off all directions only one went my direction and I ran up under him as he looked down and back at me and emptied his stomach in my path. Never do that again.
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No owls, but today we chased (at extremely slow speed) a pair of Loggerhead Shrikes down the road near where we are working. Any birders out there will know just how lucky this was, since there are thought to be somewhat less than 30 breeding pairs in Canada.
We couldn't catch them though. I'll just have to put my plans for shrike pie on hold.
Nick
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Around 25 years ago I had a magpie "stall" in front of me on a road west of West Wyalong NSW.
I was just on 190 kph on the mk 3 LeMans and had just enough time to duck, it bounced off the top of my helmet.
A mate who was behind me at similar speed described an explosion of feathers with a spinning black and white carcass spinning towards him, it just missed him. We adjusted our speed back to the politically correct level shortly after.
The other memorable bird strike thankfully wasn't on the bike, I hit a goose with the top of the windscreen of the old Datsun, dented the windscreen trim and left a few feathers, that would have been face height on the bike, the car behind me center punched it with his radiator.
If its not Roo's its birds.
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I often have owls buzz me when I'm taking my night pics. I've come to expect it and don't like to quit until it happens.
That said, in the complete silence of the Alaska wilderness, I have never heard an owl flying. My fish and game biologist friends (yeah, I got friends) concur with the 'wing filter' explanation -- Owls have brushes on their feather edges that suppress sound. I imagine that launching or radical maneuvers could generate noise, but normal flight is silent.
By comparison, listen for ravens. They sound like a minivan full of wiffle bats all swinging for the bleachers.
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Well , this owl was going up at a steep angle , dunno .
Dusty
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Paging Bob Annandale! Paging Bob Annandale! Buzzard Bob to the white courtesy phone please!
http://wildguzzi.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=21366472bebe728103d464027c8da6dd&topic=54036.0;nowap
I have a few more.
1. Some years back, one morning at the Ohio rally Gary White was leading a group to breakfast from Toronto Band Camp to Bergholz. (I said it was a while back didn't I?) Passing a flock of buzzards sitting in a tree on the side of the road, one of them decided to strafe Gary, almost hit the top of his helmet. No idea why, Gary didn't look that dead, his bike was still moving.
2. Yes, if they feel they are not gaining altitude fast enough buzzards will, um, "eject ballast" by any means available to them. I interrupted a lunch buffet on the side of the road, and there was one (there is always one) that decided to flee along the road instead of away from it. Later my buddy who was riding behind me was joking about the bird crapping on me. I informed him that I had gotten a good look at the origin of the material while I was (successfully, thank goodness) dodging the stream. It was not crap.
That same stretch of road also featured many kamikaze chipmunks. They would run across the road as they heard us coming. After several near misses, I swear one of them went BETWEEN my wheels, I'm sure he didn't go in front of me but I never felt a thump.
3. My only actual hit was in my 2002 Subaru WRX one day on my way home from work. On a multi-lane, major highway (equivalent to an interstate, controlled access with median) a goose flew up from bushes on the side of the road and decided to land on the pavement IN MY LANE! He got one foot on the asphalt and then thought better of the idea and started taking off again, but by then (after MUCH braking) I was too close for him to the clear the car. At the last second I reflexively closed my eyes and turned my head. I heard and felt a thump, but did not get a face full of broken glass and bird guts. A quick glance in the rear view mirror showed a HUGE cloud of feathers with cars skidding in all directions. Thinking I had escaped unscathed I continued on my way. A few minutes later I noticed something didn't look quite right, then it dawned on me that there was a big hole in the hood where the air scoop for the turbo intercooler used to be. The bird had hit the top edge of the scoop, and the impact launched the resulting combination of bird & car shrapnel cleanly over the roof. The only other mark I found when I got home was one feather caught on the end of the radio antenna. It cost me about $300 by the time there was a new air scoop back on the hood, painted to match.
Howard
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Dusty: Gotta remember, owls are crepuscular birds.
Personally, I've never had a close encounter with an owl on a bike. Many, many close calls with big vultures in the south and west.
Probably the worst bird I've ever tangled with is my wife's talking African Grey parrot. She is a sarcastic little beast, with a sick sense of humor. You can tell pretty quickly that birds are basically dinosaurs. A T-Rex would have the same kind of humor.
Living deep in the woods on a river I see barred during the day. It's not unusual (although it doesn't happen often) to have owls land in the open space of my garden and see them hunt. Also I see them fly though the woods as we come on go on the gravel tree lined roads. They will fly right 10-20 feet the above the car. Owls may be more active at twilight but they are also active all day long.
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Yes, when startled or attacked, vultures engage in "defensive vomiting." Nasty, nasty stuff, and extremely acidic, with a Ph of 1 to 2. Scares away predators, or burns them, destroys paint, etc.
I've had many near collisions with vultures. I've learned to just slow the heck down when I see a group of them on the road.
So, what do you call a group of vultures when they are feeding on the ground? A wake. Isn't that wonderful?
A group of vultures in flight is called a "kettle." A group of vultures resting in a tree is called a "committee." I've been interested in these birds because I have several large "committees" living on my property.
Another interesting thing about vultures is they have one of the keenest senses of smell of any animal in the animal kingdom. They basically smell death.
Their sense of smell permits them to detect very low concentrations of ethyl mercaptan, which is the stinky chemical added to otherwise odorless petroleum gases like propane, butane or natural gas.
A researcher in the early 1960s noted that vultures would flock to the smell of ethyl mercaptan, so one of the reasons to add that chemical is to attract the vultures. Vultures congregating in a certain location along a gas pipeline indicates a leak.