I worked in the 1970s for a company in Garland, Texas which operated a leased Cessna 337 Skymaster. My boss flew it to Gulfport, MS and made an instrument approach there. He didn’t notice anything unusual, but after returning we noticed that a fiberglass whip antenna just over the center of the windshield was missing. Looking closer we could see blood on the antenna stump. Seagull, without a doubt. A foot lower and the pilot would have had an unwanted passenger in the cabin.
Was flying backseat in an F-4 doing a low level tactical mission from Moody AFB in Ga, looked right and saw a damn turkey buzzard whiz by not 2 feet from the canopy. If we had taken that thing in the face the pilot would have been FUBAR.
Bird strikes are no laughing matter.
By the way the pilot of this flight is a Hero.