The Turmo 3C4s on the Puma used to convert sparrows, swallows etc. into fuel. In Northern Ireland flying low level one would pick up a dozen or so a day.
Returning from Wildenrath I ran into a big flock of Deutschesparrows whose remains severely obstructed the windscreen. I decided to return to clean up the windscreen and I told ATC why. On arrival I had the whole fire section out to meet me because apparently if Harrier picks up a bumble bee it blows up.
I ended up on top with the
SEO explaining that all those bloody streaks on the side of the engine intakes and the splitter vanes whilst my crewman was extracting carcasses out of the rotor head meant nothing and were well inside the capabilities of the engines and the airframe. Much to my amazement he let us go and I never heard anything about it afterwards.
Flying back to Shenzhen from offshore I was threading my way around the red blobs on the weather radar when we collected a big black bird, possibly a Cormorant. This was totally unexpected as we were at 1500 metres, in cloud and this bird flying without clearance in IMC conditions in China was highly illegal.
It hit the radome dead centre; we went IMC in blood and guts and the radar stopped working. This was disconcerting because we were in the middle of a cumulonimbus mine and the GPS didn't know how to dodge them. All went well and we came out and landed safely.
The big dent in the radome had jammed the scanner. Fortunately the scanner wasn't damaged and the local body shop had the radome like new the next day.