General Cycling Discussion - Talking of birds...

I can't match the hawk and sparrow experience but hows this for a once in a lifetime happening.
My girlfriend and I were out hacking the other day and we are flying along a narrow country lane between the hedgerows. when kathy, just in front of me, suddenly shouts out and wobbles all over the road recovers and we both stop.

Looking back I can just make out a couple of small objects on the tarmac. I cycle back to find 2 tiny birds lying next to each other on the road ,one dead and the other gasping its last breath. They are siskins, quite a rare sight round here and they are obviously a pair. It seems they both flew up from the grass verge one going through the wheel the other hitting Kathy on the hand and nearly taking her off the bike.

I place them together in the grass ,there is nothing more we can do and we cycle the rest of the route in silence :(

A similar thing happened to my dad once when he was riding, except it was a ground squirrel. Some how he recovered but the ground squirrel didnt.

Speaking of birds i had a nice experience with a blue heron today. The bike path a ride on is next to a canal and sometimes you get lucky and see a blue heron, about every 10 rides or so you might see one. Anyway i stopped to watch him for a while and then i left to finish my ride but on the way back i stopped to look at him again and he took off and flew right over my head. They are very beautiful birds, they stand about 3 feet tall and probably have a wingspan of well over 6 feet, very majestic.

Like I said before, I never really notice things like this in my car.

Blue Herons--don't see them much while commuting, but 17 miles away, in the Navarino nature center, they are abundant. I walked through there several times last year, when they were flocking--hundreds of them flying in circles overhead, and the noise was deafening. You have no idea....

Haven't had too many close encounters with birds while biking, apart from the Canada geese that tried to attack me once, the neighbor's free-range ducks, and those birds that insist on flying directly over your head as you bike, calling....and you don't know if they are up there overhead to warn the other birds against you.....or just to AIM.

Have seen some orioles this year, and cardinals, and plenty of hawks. Is wildlife on an increase the past few years, or am I just seeing more of it?

I decided to take a slightly different route to work a couple of weeks ago - a quiet road with a freeway to the norh and woods to the south. I was really surprised to see a very large Redtail Hawk swoop out of the woods towards a grassy area near the highway. He (she?) apparantly found some small prey in the grass and was investigatiing. It wasn't anymore than 25 feet from me as I pedaled past. What a beauty! I love the head shape of birds of prey - so majestic. Just as I got closer it spotted me and took off, back towards the woods and flew right in front of me. I could see his rusty-red tail, soft tan belly and piercing eyes. You'll never see that in a car. I love stuff like that.

I never hit any wildlife with my bike - but I cam close to hitting a rabbit once. Luckily for the rabbit my front breaks squealed and that made him change directions. That saved his life and saved me from a spill.

I saw another bunny narrowly escape death one time.

I was in my car, behind another car on a country lane. A young rabbit ran out in front of the first car. They swerved so that their wheals would not hit him. As they went over the little guy, he was hit by the undercarriage. All I saw coming out from under the front car was this blur of brown, white, brown, white etc. because he was being flipped end over end. I figured that when he was done rolling that he would be dead, but he stopped, shook his head and darted off to the side of the road.

With all the road kill I see on my ike rides, I was thrilled to see this little guy make it.

I hope he lasrned his lesson. "Stay away from the Huro-Do-Dos"

Originally posted by MikeR
\"Stay away from the Huro-Do-Dos"

Heh, heh...another WD fan! :D

A rabbit very nearly committed suicide under my bike once...it was a dark, rainy night, and he scooted out from the tall grass as I passed, going between my wheels. In fact, he was briefly pinned between my foot and the front wheel, until the pedal stroke set him free.

We have an abundance of Redtailed Hawks here
in Texas, I haven't seen one on a hunt but I love
watching them.
In Oklahoma I saw a Bald Eagle near a farm pond,
very impressive, had I been in a car I would have
never seen him.
I was dive bombed by a blueJay recently, I
suppose he/she was nesting nearby and I just
got too close, Cheeky birds eh?

Marty

Heh, heh...another WD fan!

I was wondering if anyone would notice.

I love these Widlife threads!

A subject close to my heart ;) .

I must add an astonishing happening in my area.

Not that far distance from my home, twichers from near and far are gathering to observe the progress of a pair of nesting birds with their chicks .

Whats so interesting in that you are thinking!! Well these are a pair of Tropical bee-eaters .

Never before have a pair of this bird,
hatched chicks in this country, let alone, the so called ,cold N.e of England.

Even the local press and t. v. are giving out daily updates.

Wonderfull! I hope they survive and the fledglings, when they mature come back to raise families also

Oh boy, animal sightings! A coyote crossed my path on my Saturday ride. This was at around 10:30am less than 7 miles from Stanford University.

Deer are a pretty common occurence around here. Closest call I had was once when descending at a pretty good clip, I came around a hairpin turn and there was a deer standing in the middle of the road looking right at me. I wasn't sure if there was a car behind me, so I didn't want to slam on the brakes. Fortunately for both of us, the deer jumped down into the trees when I got about 30 ft. away from it.

P.S. These are on road rides, not trails.

On my ride yesterday a deer was standing right next to the path so i stopped and looked at her for a while. It didnt notice i was there but it was squinting its eyes like it thought it saw something. After about 5 minutes it just walked back off into the woods, i love having a bike path that goes right through the woods and right next to a canal you always see plenty of animals. Ground squirrels, muskrats, snakes, deer, ducks, frogs, occasional mink or ferret its great. When i stopped at a town to fill up my bottle a little tiny frog popped out of the faucet they're everywhere lol.

Originally posted by tokus
When i stopped at a town to fill up my bottle a little tiny frog popped out of the faucet

AAaaaaaaaaa!!!!!! Dunno if I'd want to risk drinking frogs.....

Deer are always fun to see, though. I've seen a few, now. One by the side of the road who fearlessly watched from 10 feet away as I pedalled by...one who saw me coming and ran away down the trail...one who crossed the bike path silently just behind a biker coming from the opposite way....I think my favorite sighting was the time I took a break at a picnic table on the Mountain Bay trail, and a deer walked right by without noticing I was there....

Talking of wildlife has reminded me of another episode. How about this then.
Kathy my partner is our riding along the country lanes exercising her friends horses. She rides one and tows the other.

At a narrow stretch she has to stop as a large van has come from the other direction and has stopped also.

Just then a bundle of feathers tumble out of the sky down between the van and the horses onto the tarmac.
The van driver gets out the van to take a closer look and the bundle of feathers turns into a peregrine falcon and a pidgeon it has just knocked out of the sky. The peregrin just about makes it into the air with this huge pidgeon and limps off over the hedge.!...leaving the van driver with his jaw on the floor!

Wolves are making a comeback in nothern Michigan. 3 years ago while climbing Mt. Arvon (1979' elev.) in Michigan's upper peninsula my buddy and I came up over a rise and saw a pack of 7 or 8 wolves down in the hollow of the road about 100 - 150' in front of us.

These animals were magnificent with the biggest ones standing nearly top tube high at the shoulder with yellowish eyes. My front brakes squeeled as I braked to a stop which alerted them to our presence and after staring at us for what seemed like minutes, but was in actuality only a few seconds, they took off into the cover of the trees.

After contemplating whether to continue or turn back we decided to ride on, as we rolled through the area the wolves had occupied we were able to see the dirt road all torn up from the wolves hasty departure.

I didn't have my HRM on, but pretty sure I came close to max heart rate just taking in the site of these awesome animals.

WE do see blue herons around here- boy, are they big! Amazing when they take off. And we also see huge black-backed gulls, much bigger than the common herring gulls we see.

Recently, we saw a turtle on a bike path in a park. At first I thought it was a big rock. I was worried it would get run over so we went over to it to get it out of the way. We didn't even have to pick it up, it just started moving- turtles can be fast! I think it was a painted turtle. I really like turtles. In chinatown I bought a carved jade turtle. Turtles are a symbol of long life-very popular as pets in asian countries, unfortunately also popular as dinner. I guess long life doesn't apply to them.

I wasn't biking, but can't resist sharing this--I saw a bald eagle yesterday! That makes about 6 in my lifetime. And this wasn't even in the wilderness, I was on my paper route just outside Pulaski!

I was just about to drive up a hill, and I was watching at the side of the road where some very large brown and white bird was flapping around in someone's front yard....I thought it was a turkey or a goose or something. Then it took off, flying into the road ahead of me, and flying down the road briefly before heading off to a wooded area to the other side of the road.

I had stopped the car, and there was a car behind me, too. (I felt like running back to them and saying, "Did you see it?! Did you see it?!") They stayed where they were for a while after I started moving again. I don't know if they saw the eagle and were still watching it, or were just stopping to leave a comfortable gap between themselves and a person who stops in the middle of the road for no apparent reason. Most drivers are pretty laid-back here. ;)