Little emphasis is put on scanning for birds as an avoidance technique in todays training.
But it resulted in..
.
at 500 ft on take off we both saw the turkey buzzard in our path following our turn so we reversed the turn and the buzzard did too. We reversed again and the buzzard followed. The FO said they always dive so we pulled up as much as we could and the buzzard did likewise.
Nasty tricky bird wasnt it?
Cant do these maneuver in my jet...
We flew at a lower altitude to MIA in case it popped some rivets. Just a football size blood smear, no damage.
Expensive assumption..especially for a relatively low speed encounter...what aircraft are you on?