15 Birds Ranked By How Easy They Would Be To Fight
Some people love birds, considering them a great and majestic creature, a symbol of freedom and exploration. I am not one of those people. Most parts of their anatomy freak me out, and the texture of every single part of their body is unpleasant. Not only that, I’m allergic to down, so I cannot even experience the joy and comfort their feathers might offer me in a pillow. I understand that they’re an important part of the ecosystem, and I don’t wish they would all disappear, but I would prefer if most of them didn’t come near me for most of my life.
I also feel that birds are much more dangerous, and sharper, than they’re given credit for. When push comes to shove, they are decorated with a series of blades that could do serious damage. As a thought exercise, therefore, in case a war with the birds ever emerges in the future, here are 15 birds and how badly I think each one of them could mess me up in a fist-slash-talon fight.
Dove
The dove is an animal of peace. Unfortunately, this is an article of violence, and the dove could not be more ill equipped for it. The power of its symbolism and beauty will lend it no quarter when I am going at it with fists of fury, leaving it a white smear on the battleground.
Pigeon
The lowly pigeon, the footsoldier of the inevitable bird army. They do present more danger to me than the dove, but they are still, to their downfall, the perfect size and shape to be punted. They are also, as far as I can tell, as dumb as a bag of wet sand. All you’d have to do is throw one french fry to distract them and then turn them into a cloud of feathers with a swift kick.
Hummingbird
In terms of pure stopping power, I don’t see the hummingbird doing much, but the battle will almost assuredly be a massive pain in my ass. The entire throwdown would be basically like trying to kill a mosquito that keeps pecking you. The more I think about fighting a hummingbird, too, the more I have an invasive mental image of it going for my eyeballs with that awful long beak.
Chicken
I feel like fighting a chicken is kind of the baseline for how you’d do against most birds. Average mobility, aggression, and fury. I don’t think you’re LOSING any chicken 1v1s, but at the same time, you’re almost guaranteed to come out slightly lacerated.
Goose
Geese start with the huge downside of having soft little feet that can’t slice you up, but what they lack in weaponry, they make up for by being absolutely batshit insane. Have you ever seen an angry goose? They look like they just ate a full loaf of PCP-soaked whole wheat. Luckily for their enemies, their long neck presents itself as an obvious, Zelda-style weakpoint. The berserkers of the bird army.
Pelican
I’ll admit this one is kind of a crapshoot. I don’t know exactly what a fight with a pelican would look like, but I can tell you definitively that, given a choice of adversary, I’d be picking any of the birds under it on this list. It’s like the one guy in the martial arts movie tournament that’s using a forbidden style… I just don’t want any part of it. They’re like an avian Voldo from Soul Calibur. Awful.
Wild Turkey
Basically just leveled up chickens. Bigger, angrier, and faster. Like chickens on hard mode. This is also where we’re entering the domain where I come out of the fight with some serious lasting injuries. I think after fighting a wild turkey, I definitely need to go to the hospital at least to get checked out.
Crow
The crow might be a little smaller than the turkey, but it is also a crafty warrior and tactician. They’ve got big sharp beaks and exude a strong sense that they know exactly how to wield them to maximum effect. I feel like crows are the first bird that will immediately know to go for my eyes.
Raven
All the craftiness of crows, but bigger and more threatening. Not to mention that ravens always have like a weird celestial energy about them, like there’s an ancient god on their side. Once again, I see them beelining for my eyes and soft tissues, or somehow knowing where all my arteries are. No one is leaving this battle in good shape.
Red-Tailed Hawk
Now we get into the territory of genuine raptors and trained hunters. These aren’t some lily-livered draftees with their rifles trembling at first action. These are seasoned special forces with a confirmed kill count. A red-tailed hawk is coming at me from the first sound of the bell and is going to keep swinging until the deed is done. From here on out, I would put the Vegas odds on the birds.
Great Horned Owl
As the only bird that has graduated college, owls have a natural advantage in intelligence. Unfortunately, the great horned owl is also huge and has massive, ripping talons. It’s like how Dolph Lundgren is yoked as hell but also went to MIT. Plus, the owl is obviously going to wait until nightfall to go after me, at which point my number one strategy is just going to be going fetal and covering up my sweet organ meat.
Vulture
In a pinch, this feeder of corpses will be all too happy to convert me into one. They’re huge, they have big talons, and they follow no rules of god or man. They are a creature of evil, running on rotting meat like diesel fuel. They will end me swiftly and leave my family with a coffin full of clean picked bones that sounds like a maraca when lowered into the earth.
Peregrine Falcon
I don’t even have a chance against this thing. A peregrine falcon is just coming full-bore down out of the sky at a couple dozen miles per hour and turning my skull into a pie pan. It’s like trying to fist-fight a missile. Maybe if I was allowed to wear a helmet, but if I’m allowed to wear a helmet, that means the peregrine falcon would also be allowed to wear a helmet, and it’s still bad news for my brain pan.
Bald Eagle
Even based on a pure physical matchup, a bald eagle is turning me into meat ribbons. What makes this matchup even worse is that because of their federally protected status, it is actually illegal for me to punch or hit the eagle. I basically just would have to sit there and get turned into pulled pork. The only saving grace is that this would probably be the coolest bird to get killed by.
Emu
The ONLY, and I mean ONLY, reason I even have a snowball’s chance in hell against the upper tier of birds in a fight is because I can knock them out of the air and shatter their hollow bones. If I get a lucky wing break, I can go on the offensive. An emu doesn’t have this weakness at all. It’s just basically a dinosaur that’s going to break every rib in my body with a single leg thrust. Put an emu in the octagon and it’ll be an underpaid UFC champion in no time.
