Why Agile Birds Still Hit Cars and Planes

A lot of research has gone into selling the idea that birds aren't as dumb as we think they are. They can count, think rationally, and even understand speech sound mechanics. And did we mention that they fly better than anything humans ever constructed? So why is it that birds keep smacking right into our cars and planes? You'd think they'd of learned their lesson by now. Unfortunately, according to experts, that just won't happen.

That's at least according to a study recently published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, which details how researchers found that birds can actually easily avoid vehicles traveling up to 60 mph (few humans can say they can do such a feat). However, birds were found to be completely helpless against anything faster.

But why is this? Nature has designed birds to be exceptionally agile and sometimes stunningly fast in flight. The white throated needletail, for instance, can maintain a maximum constant speed of 106 mph. That can easily outpace even the most reckless of drivers, and just matches the initial takeoff and landing speeds of most commercial airplanes. Additionally, the fastest bird in the world, the Peregrine Falcon, can reach past a stunning 200 mph when diving for prey.

And while you're not likely to hear about these birds slamming into someone's windshield, researchers are claiming that they are as helpless as every other bird. So why is that?

The latest study details how test birds - brown-headed cowbirds - simply cannot process the speed of oncoming traffic fast enough. Exposed to monitored simulations of oncoming trucks, researchers found that the cow birds didn't even attempt to avoid collisions until well past when they would have been hit. They responded well enough with speeds under 60 mph however, preparing to avoid the truck when it was up to 100 feet away.

Unfortunately transportation isn't getting any slower. According to the US Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration, more than 11,000 birds slammed into ascending and landing airplanes in 2013 alone. And according to a study in The Journal of Wildlife Management, a stunning 89 million to 340 million birds have fatal meetings with motorists' wind shields annually.

The authors of both studies suggest only two solutions: slow traffic (which is unlikely to happen), or make vehicles visible for birds from farther away. How exactly this could be achieved, however, remains up in the air.

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