TEXAS -- A bird of prey went on the flight of his life after getting trapped in the grille of a pick up truck and traveling at speeds of up to 70mph.
Andy Somerville from Texas was driving home when he saw a flash in front of him and felt a bump on the front of his vehicle. However, he assumed he'd hit something and it had bounced off and didn't think anything more of it.
But the next morning on further inspection, he discovered that a red-tailed hawk had got lodged in his bumper. Miraculously, the animal was still alive.
Somerville immediately called the Wildlife Center of Texas who came out to rescue the animal.
Photographs of the trapped hawk show it hanging out of the grill by its wings.
Somerville said the bird's body was the engine compartment and he was just 'freaking out' when he found it.
'I started to reach in and he latched on to my finger pretty good,' the driver told KHOU News.
'That's when I realized it was alive.'
He said he could imagine anything surviving the collision as he was doing about 70mph at the time.
Just over a week later, vets say the hawk is on the road to recovery.
He didn't sustain any broken bones and has slight bruising from where he was hanging.
It's hoped he will be back flying again in around six weeks.
Red-tailed hawks can live up to 21 years in the wild with a maximum wing span of around 1.4 meters.
(Daily Mail - Feb 13, 2015)
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