Researchers discover why birds fail to avoid collisions with aircraft

To work out why the strikes happen, a team of scientists from the US Department of Agriculture's National Wildlife Research Center in Ohio, Indiana State University and Purdue University, also in Indiana, used virtual reality, to avoid injuring birds. Researchers found that birds start to fly away from a vehicle when it is 98 ft (30 meters) away, no matter its speed. Thus they left too late to escape vehicles traveling faster than 75 mph (120kph).
The scientists suggested that installing lights on aircraft could warn the birds to flee from a longer distance away, reducing avian deaths.
But in the end, this whole study seems like somebody trying to win an Ig Nobel prize. Birds crash into planes because the planes are moving too fast for them to get out of the way? Whodathunkit?