Close shave

Cats love birds, close call this time.
The errant creature decided to cross the road, it must have looked both ways and saw a bike either side of the road and set off - he missed the chap on the other side of the road and carried on 'running', I grabbed a handful of front brake - we did manage to miss each other - not sure how though

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Great pic Steve!! Glad you kept it upright!!

thats rather close indeedy!

cracking picture mind!

Snapshot from the Bike cam, here is the video - I didn't see much more than what the camera captured. Had just turned around on my ride, the approaching bike had been behind me.



Hopefully you can see the video now

About as close as you can get, great picture Steve.

Paul

Bloody hell Steve! Close call..

Pheasant are the thickest birds on the planet, the literal definition of Bird Brained.

I once saw a tourist swerve to avoid one, narrowly avoiding a minibus full of kids...unbelievable.   

I hit one on big mac a couple of years ago and nearly broke my shoulder. It cracked the nose cone and bounced up..

Glad no damage was done! And yeah, that's a great piccie.

Close call but cracking picture - and nicely avoided

They may be stupid, but they're also pretty tough.

A few years ago, one flew out of a hedge and clouted me on the head. I was doing 60-ish at the time, so it was a fair old whack. Fortunately there was a layby just ahead, so I could pull in for a few minutes until the stars had stopped going round. According to the guy following me the pheasant just bounced off and flew up into a tree as if nothing had happened.

Another time I was following a car on a single-track lane through one of the big estates north of Oxford - obviously one of the places where they breed them, they were all over the road. The car driver wouldn't slow down and the inevitable happened - explosion of feathers and a body going sideways onto the verge. Sure enough, as I passed, there was what looked like a late pheasant lying in the grass. "I'll have that," says I, my neighbour being an expert pheasant plucker. But by the time I'd parked the bike and gone back, the thing had recovered and scarpered into the hedge. Anyway, I'm not sure if it would have fitted down the front of my jacket.

My first close encounter with one was also on a single track road and the outcome wasn't a happy one. I had captured that image too on video, but the lens almost immediately turned yellow, oh dear I hit it. Took a lot of effort to clean the bike afterwards, with that in mind I was determined not to collect this one.
Daft maybe, but they are somewhat more predictable than sheep. The wildlife I have encountered in Europe are quite different from what I have experienced in Africa, there the animal will turn around and head back from whence it came - so you think you have escaped it and find it heading back on you. Problem is a number of humans have the same instinct there too   

You got luckier than this guy then!

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Cat's instinctively chase birds and riders are bird magnets.

What chance did they have?

my m8 had a ford granada fast back like on the sweeney the bird went though the front grill took out the fan & rad wrap it self round the fan belt then cooked it self on the hot engine the smell was not nice & he was finding bits of peasent for months after wards