Bicycling, black birds and helmet colour

I’ve started riding my bike again after a year or so of not riding and I am getting a bit tired of being attacked by black birds. They swoop down on me and even make contact a number of times as I ride through their territory. I did a little test today and changed helmets. I usually ride with a black and grey helmet which seems to drive the birds crazy. I tried the same route wearing a blue helmet (it’s too small for me so I can’t wear it all the time) and although the birds still swooped at me it didn’t seem as bad and none of the birds made contact.

So I’ve decided to buy a new helmet. Does anyone have any suggestions about the best colour that will keep the bird attacks to a minimum? What clolour is your helmet and how bad are the bird attacks?

Thanks for any help.

[quote=“Gilgamesh”]I’ve started riding my bike again after a year or so of not riding and I am getting a bit tired of being attacked by black birds. They swoop down on me and even make contact a number of times as I ride through their territory. I did a little test today and changed helmets. I usually ride with a black and grey helmet which seems to drive the birds crazy. I tried the same route wearing a blue helmet (it’s too small for me so I can’t wear it all the time) and although the birds still swooped at me it didn’t seem as bad and none of the birds made contact.

So I’ve decided to buy a new helmet. Does anyone have any suggestions about the best colour that will keep the bird attacks to a minimum? What clolour is your helmet and how bad are the bird attacks?

Thanks for any help.[/quote]

You my friend are screwed. The next generation will be coming at you. Better get a Dick Cheney mask.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/science/26crow.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin

Try this helmet and store the propane tank in your water bottle holder.

why don’t you, like, not wear a helmet? if you’re like 99% of Taiwanese and riding a mountain bike on a riverside path at a sedate 15 km/h, it would take some spectacular cycling skills to have the sort of accident that pitches you head first into the cement…

alternatively attach a cat to your helmet to scare the birds away :roflmao:

There was a thread about it in May of last year:

[quote=“sandman”]Black drongos. They get very aggressive if they’re protecting their nests. There’s usually at least one TV news clip per year of some guy getting attacked. And sure, they’ll go for scooter riders, too.[/quote] Pepper Spray for Birds?

Here’s what one poster in that thread suggested:

[quote]Well if they’re anything like the Australian magpie, which are famous for being aggressive to cyclists in particular (late August to early October is their breeding season and thats when they get pissy), the best way to keep 'em off the back of your head is to fly a flag on a pole that extends up from your back wheel. Its not the most convenient thing to do, but it’ll probably keep the these blackbirds at bay. [/quote] Pepper Spray for Birds?

Here’s a short vid of some black birds buzzing a bicyclist (the poster of the vid calls them 烏秋 (wūqiū); I think that may be another name for the black drongo (黑卷尾; hēijuànwěi)):

youtube.com/watch?v=nBSelyVKiK0

Here they’re going at another bicyclist:
youtube.com/watch?v=HSNHWNMJ7BU

Part 2 of the above video:
youtube.com/watch?v=WRYRKHe2tow

Part 3:
youtube.com/watch?v=0mAo0cW_nxg&NR=1

Here’s a Chinese-language page which I think discusses these birds attacking bicyclists:
5i01.com/topicdetail.php?f=268&t=338483&p=7

(Edit: On the page linked just above, there are some good pics of the birds. Earlier I pasted links in this post to those pics, but I just discovered that for some reason the links didn’t work, so I deleted the them.)

Here’s a Wikipedia article on black drongos:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Drongo

[quote=“Bubba 2 Guns”]
You my friend are screwed. The next generation will be coming at you. Better get a Dick Cheney mask.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/science/26crow.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin[/quote]

Great, so they probably have me memorized by now. I have noticed that one bird in particular becomes a lot more aggressive on my way back through its territory than it is on my first time through. Maybe it gets pissed off because it already drove me out of its territory once.

[quote]The Bear wrote:
why don’t you, like, not wear a helmet? if you’re like 99% of Taiwanese and riding a mountain bike on a riverside path at a sedate 15 km/h, it would take some spectacular cycling skills to have the sort of accident that pitches you head first into the cement…[/quote]

Well, I don’t go particularly fast but I do pick up a bit of speed coming down some of the mountains. Besides, like driving a scooter, it’s not necessarily what I’m doing but what the other idiots on the road are doing. Also if I didn’t wear a helmet, I’d be worried that the birds would hit me in the head instead of the helmet.

Would changing the colour of my helmet be helpful or would it just be a waste of money?

Thanks for the link Charlie Jack. Someone in the thread you linked to said something about getting some eyes put on the back of the helmet. I might look into this to see if it will work

Just learn where they swoop and swing a cablelock around your head when cycling through their territory. :2cents:

You’re welcome, and I wish you success in dealing with those feisty guys.

I must ask,

Where is this happening to you? What road? Which mountain?

I have been riding for the last three years and have never encountered this problem …
I would like to avoid it.

It happens all over the place on country roads around Yilan. I live out in the country so there are a lot of birds around everytime I ride my bike

propellor?

propellor?

Where’s Alfred Hitchcock when you need him?

Seriously, I have seen some of those birds on a road that I take down to Changhua twice a week. Some of them have swooped down, but I have never had the problem you have with them coming close enough to make contact (either because they are not inclined or my speed makes it difficult for them to line up their shots).

Regardless, for that person who suggested not wearing a helmet??? :no-no:

It looks like black bird season is over. At least where I live. I still get swooped down upon on occasion but no where near what it was like a month ago. The birds that used to attack me on my usual route are now gone so I can ride a bit easier. I never did bother with buying the new helmet.

I actually killed a small bird a couple of weeks ago on our club workout ride. A bunch of low flying birds as we were coming off a bridge spanning the river between Dali and Wufeng districts and one of them hit me just above the right chest. Fell to the ground and while it was hard to tell while riding at 45 kph, it didn’t look like it was moving…

Bird swooped down and taloned a fairly strong sneak attack to my head in the park today. It was quickly frightened away by my loud cursing lol. Think it was one of those common magpie type birds, whatever they are. Was sitting on a ledge staring at me lol, I didn’t hang around to examine it too closely

This is funny… one month ago I was riding in YMS when a “big” bird descent over me and flew “with me”, not far from my head, for several seconds. I thought it could be some small type of eagle, but now I can’t even remember the color. it looked like it was either playing with me or definding its territory. Nice to know that this happens to other people too.

It happened to me a bazillion times in Australia (#^$&ing magpies), but in over 5000kms in Taiwan I’ve never been harassed by birds (yet). And I live in Yilan, so plenty of nature and trees and green stuff, but so far so good.

By there again today. Oddly enough, based on the local fauna observed, seems to have been a Common Magpie, not one of those more common smaller ones I was thinking of–thought it might have been too big for one of those.