Game birds on the road when you're driving

So what do you do?

Run ’em over so tea’s sorted?

Stop and let them wander from one side of the road t’other and back again?

Sound your horn?

We’re talking mainly youngsters here. 🙂

It’s been a long time since I’ve met a game bird!
Chance would be a fine thing!

Oh, that sort of game bird.

Sound my horn, which is what I always do when I see wildlife or domesticated animals on the road. Animals generally respond to loud noises better than humans.

OK, completely not the topic I was expecting!

But on topic, if you do run them over, you can’t have them, but the car behind you can! So quickly phone a mate!

Where we live we just stop and let them do their thing (as we also do with deer, peoples ruddy chickens, fearless cats, snakes, OAPs…)

I’d let em out the way, don’t want to destroy part of the local economy!

You wouldnt run over sheep in the road would you.. just slow down

Usually I sound the horn so they fly off.

Give them 75 yards

Then shoot them with my 12 bore.

They are a bloody menace. A few years ago I hit one on the A40. It was early morning and the stupid thing took off just before I hit it. It made a big hole in the front plastic panel which cost £300+ to fix. I

You wouldnt run over sheep in the road would you.. just slow down

I came to a complete halt and all the young pheasants did was dither! But you never know what’s coming up behind you on a country lane so felt I was a bit of a sitting duck.

And, yes, could make a nice mess of the car. 🙁

Ah, well i wouldnt stop for long, theyre only worth 50p once dead

All just been released ready for the start of the shooting season, thick as a couple of short planks

I give them a damn good plucking because I’m a pheasant plucker.

When cycling today I came across many nurseries, both pheasant and partridge. I even pinged my bell but to no avail.

But when they suddenly fly, when you don’t realise they’re there. 😯

Care you don’t collect them on the front. My old boss hit 1 and bust his radiator when it lodged there, cooked both bird and engine.

I was on the Leeds Outer Ring Road, Wortley area one saturday afternoon. There’s a beck (small stream to non-Yorkshire folk) in the area.

Mama Mallard & 8 ducklings decided they didn’t want to use the culvert under the road, oh no, they were going to use the green cross code.
Fantastic sight, 2 lanes of traffic held up in both directions by a duck & her offspring.

They all made it across the road 🙂

what the fox is that?

Not sure it might have been a deer.

Uranium filled fox by the look of it, driving at er, 30 ish?

Blimey, that is seriously grim. 🙁

I just don’t see how that’s possible!

mmm, venison

good job it wasn’t a moose, eh?

Did it survive?

the car?

I’d that a still no eye deer ?

Brake fairly hard.

I nearly hit a pheasant on track at Cadwell, came round Barn, onto the start/finish straight, flat out, starts walking into the track a few hundred meters up the road.

I didn’t fancy hitting it and having a broken bumper/radiator/oil cooler or windscreen!

Over here with Kangaroos/Wombats etc, hit them straight on with the middle of the car and don’t swerve, more chance of having an accident that way. Only hit one wombat up to now luckily I was in the work Land Cruiser and it bounced off the diffs and didn’t do any damage.

The car two lanes over from me on the motorway in Sydney cleaned up a roo once though when I was coming back from the airport. That was an eye opener as it was in my lane only seconds before!

game bird meets game bird…

Going over Buttertubs a couple of months back, I slowed, honked, then stopped for a sheep that would not move. In the end I had to gently cajole it out of the way with the bumper!

One past, it just went back to licking the tarmac where it was before 😯

Not sure it might have been a deer.

Was just enjoying my breakfast as well..

Apparently its a myth that the driver who killed the animal/game can’t take it but following drivers can. Anyone including the first driver can take it. Anyone confirm this?!

killing and eating game is poaching, taking home road kill you found for the pot is just called odd.

depends on the roadkill.

neatly dispatched pheasant or deer, lovely!

hedgehog or rook, probably not.. though I bet someone will be along shortly to correct me!

You hit a pheasant or anything else for that matter with your car and it’s not worth eating anyway so drive on and leave the bugger where it is.

You hit a pheasant or anything else for that matter with your car and it’s not worth eating anyway so drive on and leave the bugger where it is.

Eh?

You hit anything with your car and the meat isn’t worth eating so leave it where you hit it.

You hit anything with your car and the meat isn’t worth eating so leave it where you hit it.

Depending on the animal in question, the speed of the impact, whether it was a glancing blow, and many other variables…

As far as I know it’s not illegal to eat roadkill and it’s not poaching if the game birds are not on the landowners property ( may be wrong about this one but can’t see how you police such things)

After quite a lot of close calls with Pheasants ( one was crossing the M25….gulp) and having one go bouncing off my windscreen last year on a local road after it flew out a hedge having been disturbed by traffic I think that they are the thickest animals in the world….”Shall I fly away from danger? No, I think I wil run instead…fly high into the air? No, I shall fly at about 2ft off the ground” TBH Clay pigeons have more brains.

Still, they do taste good roasted ( Pheasants, not clay pigeons) and there are many serving suggestions available :

Roadkill cookbook

The chances of a glancing blow are very slim. It’s easy to see most of you on here are townies.