How do birds accurately predict the path of vehicles?

Question

I see crows and magpies on the road all the time. Vehicles coming at them at 60km/h in a curve. The bird can skip 10cm in one direction to avoid the trajectory of the vehicle. How do they manage that? You rarely see avian roadkill.

In: Biology

Answer 1

>You rarely see avian roadkill.

That doesn’t mean that there isn’t avian roadkill. Birds are small and when they get hit they tend to go splat to the point where they’re not recognizable, and also get easily picked up and removed by larger scavengers. I live next to a major highway and the most common roadkill is probably cats, with the second most common being birds.