They call them migrating birds

[rmciottijr]

I call them a pain in the A$$ this morning. Well I was taking my plane to Quakertown (KUKT) airport today to get some work done. Now KUKT is only 16 nm from Brandywine so I thought I would turn it in to a cross country by going to N51. So I got up a little earlier so I could still meet up with my ride from KUKT to work. I back taxied to RWY 9 as I was passing some geese (not on the RWY) I thought to myself, they are going to be a problem. As I lined up and started my roll they all (and I mean all) walked onto the RWY from both sides. So I backed off the throttle and taxied up to them pushing them off the RWY. Turned around and headed back to 9 the taxied back up to the migrating birds and again pushed them off the RWY. Don’t they know I have a big fan on the front I can migrate them if I want. Well, I did this four times I was about to shutdown the plane and personally move them. Help arrived we are having our taxi way lengthen and a worker in a whit van was watching this (I bet laughing his A$$ off because I would of) . He helped out by driving around the birds and getting them to fly off the RWY. So now I am 15 min later taking off but I am off. The weather was great but every report I got they talked about migrating birds on the runway it made me laugh. I did a crappy landing into N51 and a crappy landing into KUKT guess I need to work on them. All in all the flight was enjoyable and I built up some XC time for my IR.

Well I just wanted to vent a little about the geese.

Bob

 

[Laurie]

I never had that experience with migratory fowl, but I have had to fire up the helicopter to chase antelope and mule deer off the runway back in Montana. Wait a minute, I didn't mean 'chase', what I really meant was to persuade them to vacate the area through the use of rotor noise by hover or air taxiing nearby. Seriously though, we'd get anywhere from 2 or 3 dumb ones that would just park themselves on the centerline to a couple dozen grazing around the runway and taxiway.

It may have been a royal pain today, but what a great story!