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"Swarm" of Seagulls @ 9500

Toobuilder

Well Known Member
New one for me... Typical trip across the open desert to Phoenix, a route I've taken many times. Severe clear weather, Fat dumb and happy cruising along on autopilot and I glance down at the iPad to see what kind of traffic is out there that I can't see with the eyeballs. Just a glance, mind you - not minutes of heads down. When I look up, I see what appears at first to be a cloud of black smoke off in the distance. It quickly turns into a massive swarm of bees... Nope, it's birds coming right at me, co altitude, 12:00, and at 190 knots this distance is closing rapidly. I rolled into 90 degrees of bank and pulled hard, narrowly missing the whole mess. It turned out to be several hundred seagulls flying in a tightly packed, 100 foot diameter ball. The elapsed time between seeing the faint "smoke" to pulling g's was about 2 seconds.

Center punching that mass of flesh and feathers would have made for a very, very bad day

What is it with me and birds?

Anyway, one more reason to remain vigilant, even when up nice and high.
 
You were lucky - 9,500' sounds very high for seagulls. Not surprising that they were in a tightly packed ball - probably trying to keep warm!
 
Flew that route yesterday from Victorville over at 9500 ft.
Never saw the seagulls.... thank you for reminding them to file for lower.
I appreciate that.:)
 
Similar story here, except the fod is a much larger "cloud" of bats, expected in this area. 5:30pm coming out of San Antonio headed home to Austin (one of the bat capitals of the world). SAT departure holding us at 5k' when I really wanted 7500 for this very reason. We flew into a cloud of many tens of thousands of bats at 5k'. I could see the top of the "cloud" but not the bottom. It took two or three sec to compute the situation. I still can't figure out how we didn't hit a big juicy one.
"Departure, 22C is climbing to 7500 immediately for bats." Imagine the climb rate when you PULL. Got cleared to 7500 immediately VFR. Happened very fast. The next call was going to involve declaring an emergency.

After clear, looking down on the biggest cloud of bats in flight that we've ever seen, ...
"Approach, that was a huge cloud of bats from 4k to 5k moving south, did they not show up on radar?" "Uh, yeah, we saw something, but we've never seen them up that high." Four letter words spewing in our cockpit for the next 20 min but no response on freq.
 
Robins

Not at altitude, but I saw a flock of Robins flying immediately over our airstrip. There must have been thousands of them, flying North to South in 1 hour before dusk in January. If I would have been taking off just then, it would have made for a very uncomfortable landing in the tall oak trees.
 
"Approach, that was a huge cloud of bats from 4k to 5k moving south, did they not show up on radar?" "Uh, yeah, we saw something, but we've never seen them up that high." Four letter words spewing in our cockpit for the next 20 min but no response on freq.

Unless the bats were equipped with mode C, ATC would have no idea how high up they were.
 
Let me guess. The seagulls were chasing a pelican with a fish and all yelling "Mine!"?
 
Lift is where you find it!

Must have been a good soaring day. California gulls routinely soar into the great basin in the spring for nesting and feeding. Ask the Mormons about their state bird!

I've seen white pelicans at 17000 ft in wave lift.
I've watched golden eagles thermal into the bottom of a cu and go completely IMC on the White Mountains at over 18000 ft. A gaggle of gulls at 14000 ft is not unusual in the middle of the day.

Stating the obvious, they are not looking for food! Flying is fun, soaring is even more fun. Birds figured out a long time ago, "you got the gift of wings, so use 'em".
 
were you on flight following? ATC might of been able to see them on radar or had someone report on them. it was your lucky day. birds are my biggest concern. :eek:
 
Growing up in the 80's when ATC tells me to look for a flock of seagulls....

This is what I start to look for :D

http://youtu.be/KtUsPWn7zgg

Great music I suppose - wonder if it would have been born without drugs on the scene. Certainly was a factor with musicians like Elvis and Cash and Joplin.

A friend flew into several ducks at 9000' recently with his Bonanza. The aircraft has been in a shop for some time with the repair bill at over $50,000.

The Bonanza is tough, built like a tank; the light weight RV might not have faired so well.

Aviators must be constantly vigilant. The enemy is ever present especially on bright sunny days.
 
were you on flight following? ATC might of been able to see them on radar or had someone report on them. it was your lucky day. birds are my biggest concern. :eek:

This was one of the few times I've taken a trip of this distance without ATC. I was solo, and the weather was great... Come to think of it, I never even saw another airplane.

Birds are quickly becoming one of my biggest concerns. Especially after dodging all those giant buzzard things down in Florida a few months ago. Like I said, this was a new one for me. I was just over Twentynine Palms - the closest body of water was the Salton Sea, 35 miles away. It's not like I was buzzing over a fleet of shrimp boats at mast height. I've never even seen "A" seagull at 9,500, let alone a whole swarm.
 
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Was flying with a student last weekend near KGJT and encountered several large flocks of sandhill cranes. There were several hundred in each flock and they were circling in the thermals. Those are some BIG birds!!
 
not sure if this is true, but a CFI told me once that when you see birds, PULL because they tend to dive if they see a collision coming...
 
not sure if this is true, but a CFI told me once that when you see birds, PULL because they tend to dive if they see a collision coming...

Certainly true. You'll prove it to yourself with some more time in the seat.
 
You gotta get those terms right:
It's a:
Screech of Gulls
Cloud of Bats (+1 Scott Card!)
Flock of Ducks
Convocation of Eagles
Murder of Crows
Seige of Cranes
Wake of Buzzards
Tease of Thorps ;) (that's a new one) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDXadlcLBEg
?????? of RV's? :confused: (we gotta get something going here before someone assigns us an uncomplimentary one!)
 
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Similar story here, except the fod is a much larger "cloud" of bats, expected in this area. 5:30pm coming out of San Antonio headed home to Austin (one of the bat capitals of the world). SAT departure holding us at 5k' when I really wanted 7500 for this very reason. We flew into a cloud of many tens of thousands of bats at 5k'. I could see the top of the "cloud" but not the bottom. It took two or three sec to compute the situation. I still can't figure out how we didn't hit a big juicy one.
"Departure, 22C is climbing to 7500 immediately for bats." Imagine the climb rate when you PULL. Got cleared to 7500 immediately VFR. Happened very fast. The next call was going to involve declaring an emergency.

After clear, looking down on the biggest cloud of bats in flight that we've ever seen, ...
"Approach, that was a huge cloud of bats from 4k to 5k moving south, did they not show up on radar?" "Uh, yeah, we saw something, but we've never seen them up that high." Four letter words spewing in our cockpit for the next 20 min but no response on freq.

To be fair, the bats don't have Mode-C :)
 
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