The other day I was telling someone my Emu story and it occurred to me that I seem to have reasonably frequent run-ins with critters while out and about on the bike.  Getting into Adv riding has only increased my odds.  So far I've been lucky in that the run-ins have only been eye openers for me, although some critters were harmed  (unintentionally) in the making of this post...

So, now for a bit of a list and maybe some tales...

Birds

They say that in NZ we have a bird for every job that mammals do in other places (our only native mammals are a couple of little bats) so you tend to see a few.  I won't mention every bird I've seen but just the ones where things have got interesting:
Swifts - normally travel in squadrons of hundreds and explode on impact when hit by an RG250 at 80mph...Sparrows - small and fast.  Will cook right through when wedged between the oil cooler and fairing on a GSX750F.  Cooked sparrow comes apart easy...Pukeko - dumb enough to run into the side of a Tenere.Hawks - big, slow, angry and not to be messed with.  Often snacking in the middle of the road.  Nearly took one on the handlebars of my GSX400X - would have been exciting.Weka - don't normally see them on the road but they are nosey so and so'sAmorous weka meets SB...Ducks - hard case jokers.  Slow to cross the road unless they lift off.  Unfortunately hit some little ones with the VTR one night.  Mark hit an adult duck one day and i...