B.C. driver smacked in face by grouse flying through window

A Prince George, B.C.,  man is a little ruffled after being hit in the face by a grouse while driving into town.

"Everything kind of went bright, and I heard a ringing in my ears," said Josh Seymour, an elected councillor with the Lheidli T'enneh First Nation. "I didn't know what happened."

Seymour was driving along a rural road between his home and the city, about 20 kilometres away when he was knocked in the side of the head. He says he came to his senses at almost the exact same time the grouse did and managed to pull over as the bird started flapping around his head.

"It was still wrapped around the back of my neck between me and the seat," he said. "It took about 20 seconds for me to realize I had been hit ... because I was still trying to figure out why there was a grouse in my vehicle."

WATCH | Seymour films his unexpected passenger:

B.C. man hit in face by grouse while driving down rural road

2 years ago

Duration 0:15

Josh Seymour was driving on a dirt road north of Prince George, B.C., when he was hit in the side of the face. When he came to, he found a grouse inside his truck and started filming the encounter.

Once he figured out what was going on, Seymour realized no one would believe his story unless he got some sort of evidence, so he pulled out his phone and started filming the surprise visitor sitting in his backseat before opening the door and letting it get back into the woods.

"I can 100 per cent guarantee that I'm the only elected official in Canada to ever get hit in the face by a grouse while driving," he said.

CBC News has not been able to verify this claim.

'A perfect coincidence': ornithologist

One of the reasons Seymour was so confused is his window was only down about four inches, which he didn't think would be enough space for the grouse to get through. "I thought it was a snowball," he said.

Ken Otter, an ornithologist and professor at the University of Northern British Columbia, says the grouse had incredibly lucky timing to find itself inside the truck rather than run over by it.

He said grouse are frequently spooked by vehicles on rural roads which causes them to suddenly fly up into the air beating their wings, a practice known as "flushing."

"They often just wind up across the grill [of the vehicle]," he said, calling what happened to Seymour a "perfect coincidence."

Grouse a regular rural road hazard

In fact, Otter says grouse flying into vehicles is such a problem that he always gives a talk to his new grad students about how to behave when they are inevitably faced with a grouse flying at them while driving.

He tells them the best thing to do is just keep driving because if they try to swerve to avoid the bird, there's a strong chance they'll wind up in a more dangerous situation.

"I had a graduate student who put his car into the ditch because a grouse flushed in front of him," he said. "It destroyed our field vehicle."

"I have known of grouse hitting the sides of vehicles when they flush, but this is the first one I have seen that flew right into an open window," he said in an email after reviewing the video.

"One in a million shot — you might want to tell the councillor today is a good day to buy lottery tickets."

And, in fact, that's exactly what Seymour did, saying, "I think I have a better chance of winning millions than getting hit by a grouse while I'm driving 60 down a dirt road through a four-inch window."

But he said he's not leaving everything to chance moving forward.

"I'm going to be driving with the windows up."