I struck a crow once on takeoff. They were sitting on the grass on the freshly cut grass at the north side of the airfield and I thought when I opened the throttle the noise from the engine would scare them away. Well needless to say it did but instead of flying the opposite direction they went right across the runway and I hit one of the straglers, chopped it up nicely with the prop and got blood and feathers all over the canopy and aborted the takeoff roll. I then had to explain rather sheepishly to the CFI why his aircraft had a damaged prop and covered in blood and bits of crow, he wasn't too impressed
