Chiark, Are you sure it was an African Swallow and not a European one?

Tony,Well, the two Pheasants that I hit recently caused my screen to explode...

Matt

 

My first screen went two days after i bought the car. It was cold outside - snowing (last december) i was on the motorway with the heater on and crack, a perfect silouhette of the bonnet scoop. i could only think it was a temperature differential between the inside of the car, the outside air temp of air not being sucked into the scoop and the "dead air" behind the scoop.
Put the sh*ts up me at the time - v loud. and then very expensive.

 

I crashed once and my mate hit his head on the screen which fell out forwards onto the bonnet ! I was more worried about the phone pole I'd just hit ! and it was bloody raining !

 

Saw a programme on NTL over the weekend about stones etc coming from space, said it happened far more often than you'd imagine, and showed some cars that had been hit by small to medium stones/debris etc.

 

There is no way an air rifle is going to shatter a windscreen, the lead pellets just deform and bounce off, its not like in the movies you know.
Sometimes even full bore handgun rounds wont penetrate a windscreen when fired from in front as the angle means they just ricochet off.