"I sincerely hope that your acquaintance did not sustain serious damage to his Jeep Cherokee."
I was traveling up the interstate at 80 MPH when a full grown turkey hen crossed 2 lanes of traffic causing our paths to intersect. The result was a license plate shaped like a turkey but no other damage. I also learned the trajectory of a van launched turkey.
I was doing about 70 when two doves which had been foolishly sitting on the OTHER side of the highway fluttered off to avoid a semi--directly into my path. One would assume doves would crack the windshield. They did not. But they both deflected upward off the glass, spun like a top, all the while shedding more feathers than a nuke in a pillow factory, and ended up bouncing nicely behind us on the highway, until after we were a few hundred yards away and we saw another semi turn them into dove mush.
I believe most species of birds are barely sentient. Some people think fish don't feel pain. I don't buy that, but I'm pretty sure that most birds, if they DO feel pain, are too @#!$#@! stupid to understand it.
(And I'm sure if someone reading this owns a bird and is now fuming, THEIR bird is the exception, of course--it's all the OTHER birds that are dumb as rocks)