Back in the mid to late 80's there was a cub flying at a county park just south of San Jose, Ca. There is a lot of hawks in the area. One guy decided to get into a dog fight with one. and he won. The rangers saw it and the club lost a very nice flying site as a result.

We have a lot of hawks, golden eagles, buzards, ducks, geese, and birds I wouldn't begin to know the name of all of them. We seem to get along OK. We've had one "mid air" with a duck in the almost 5 years I've been in the club, and it was big news at the time, so it isn't very common. If you drive along Hwy 1which is near our field, you will find the cars do much more damage to the bird population than our planes do, maybe three or four magnitudes or more.

Dodge the birds, and if they go after your plane, get it on the ground. Of course, that may not be safe either. When I was early in the training phase, I would go out to the field and taxi up and down the runway without a wing. One day, there was a hawk in the area. I woud run off the runway and tip over, and the hawk was come swooping in for a look. It never attacked the plane, but it made about four or five passes that day in about a 30 minute time. I got a lot of walking out an retriving my plane during the same time. Another day, one of the Hawks made a kill on a ground squirel next to the runway. Imade a dozen or so passes by it, not much more than 20 ft away and it wasn't bothered until I went out to retireve the plane after it ran off the edge of the runway. As soon as I turned away and started back to the pits with the plane, it was back to dinnner.

For the most part, your plane is just another bird in the air to the real birds.

Chalk up your loss to Mother Nature 1, Man 0 for the day.

Don