Red-wing Blackbirds
 

Today on my ride I was attacked twice by these stupid red-wing blackbirds. Early on in the ride one landed on my helmet and stayed there for a few seconds before I realized there was a bird sitting on my head. 30 miles down the road it happened again, a bird attacked my head and made contact with my helmet. Has anyone else ever been assaulted by a bird like this?

What's so special about your helmet that catches their attention? You have worms sprouting outta the vents? I also just noticed these birds today while I was out running.

Just another good reason to wear a helmet, especially when Damian/ Satan has it out for you. From The Omen:

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j2...se/theomen.jpg

While I have never had one sit on my helmet I have had them dive bomb me before. Always during this time of year so I was thinking maybe they had young in a nest and perceived me as an intruder/predator who ventured too close.

They have always dive bombed me when I used to run by them but they have never actually made contact with me. I have an orange helmet, maybe it looks more like a predator than just a runner.

wth?

Hi, Yes, I've had them chase me several times this time of year, but never make contact. They get very territorial when nesting. Seems like they are much more protective than other birds frequenting our area.

Guam has these black birds that are like nothing I've ever seen outside of movies. They are so aggressive that I've known people to take racquetball rackets with them when they go running to swat at the birds. They are worse on the Navy base where they attack you year round. At least on the Air Force base they only attack during mating season.

This is nesting time for them, and like msimet wrote, they'll attack if they perceive you as a threat. If you were moving a little faster, they'd just give you a fighter escort to their border.

One of my favorite birds to watch as they are so beautiful. As Montana noted above, it's nesting time and they don't like people in their space. Reality is they are harmless to you. Assaulted? Lol...Now go rent the movie by Alfred Hitchcock, The Birds, and get over your phobia.

I just got attacked 2 days ago! I had to spray it with my water bottle to get rid of it!

It's nesting season and red wing blackbirds are very territorial...All the females fly in and build nests, and if a female bird is in a male's territory, she is his for the taking. The more females the more he gets.

My helmet is silver/black, but they're still ******** for attacking something 8000x bigger than it.

Bird flew into my head when playing golf about ten years ago.... never on the bike.

years ago when i was a runner and not a biker, for a week or so i was followed on a 5 mile out-and-back course by some sort of bird. i don't recall ever getting a good look, but i could hear it whistling and calling fairly constantly through the run. then i also recall one of the members of our HS cross country team running into a flock of ducks as they waddled about in a nearby park. he ran in waving his arms and yelling to scare and scatter them only to have one drop dead on the spot as the rest flew away.......

have fun,
aaron

You mean your head???:p

I've seen redwings while riding, but never attacked by one.
But yesterday I was on a section of the C&O Canal. A family of geese objected to my riding by and one of the adults put its head down and charged at me. It didn't make contact with me, but I pedaled out of there fast.

I was attacked by red-wing blackbirds when I rode in northern wisconsin and I foolishly crashed the bike the first time it happened because I overreacted.

Since then I worked with a biology teacher for three months who was working on her masters field research thesis called "Aggressive nesting habits of red-wing blackbirds". It seems that they are particularly annoying to farmers on tractors. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about them when I mentioned my experiences to her.

Bottom line -
Attacks are quite common, they will swoop from the side, but generally prefer coming at you from the back.

They are quite intelligent and know to stay away from the front of humans. Keep riding, ignore them since you are wearing a helmet, they will peck at the helmet as they swoop down and occasionally will land on the helmet and peck away as you ride.

The relative closeness of the road to the nesting site is proportional to the degree of aggressiveness.
If you increase your pace once the attack begins, they will fly back to their territory and leave you alone. Unfortunately, their territory can be quite large thanks to the number of females involved. So it may seem that one has it out for you.

The attacks are most common in mid to late spring, so you might have about another 2 weeks of aggravation.

Stop smearing peanut butter and sesame seeds all over your helmet.

Az

This is not uncommon. On separate occasions, my wife and I have been dive-bombed by these birds.
Yeah, it's kind of freaky.

No blackbirds but I have been dive bombed by a Mississippi Kite during its' nesting season. I caught a glimpse of it's shadow just before it made contact with my helmet. Fortunately, I had heard of this happening in the same area from another rider just a few weeks earlier and therefore was not suprised when it happened to me.

I knew that was a bad idea, I'll take that into account next time.

+1

Mockingbirds are also quite defensive and will agressively run off even much large birds like crows.