Originally Posted by
hilltowner
My brother, who is a bike messenger in S.F., claims to have heard loud popping sounds when pigeons get run over, particularly by buses. Anyone care to corroborate that?
Yeah, I heard a NYC taxi take out a pigeon a few years ago. The sound was not what you normally think of as "pop" but then again I can't give you a better term for it. Pop, whop, shbop, something like that. A whole lot of feathers falling like snow in the taxi's wake.
[MENTION=418370]canklecat[/MENTION], your photo reminds me of the time I crossed a busy CT road on foot and there in the crosswalk was a Baltimore Oriole. It looked perfect, lying there, but was going to get smashed by the next car. It was the first and only Baltimore Oriole I've ever seen, so much bigger than a goldfinch, and it seemed a shame for it to get destroyed, even though I assumed it was dead. So very irrationally I tried to nudge it over to the side of the road with my foot.
As soon as my foot touched it, it stood up, shook out its feathers, and flew away.
