GLs Highlights: How to instantly puree a bird

My Mom just got an email from her brother (my uncle Rick). He built a bunch of airplanes for some airline and now volunteers at an airplane museum where he keeps his own airplane.

Here's the email:

There we were, In a 1954 Cessna 180, 1500’ eastbound over the second narrows bridge in Vancouver, just clearing the Harbour control zone. We were on our way back from a nice lunch at a restaurant on the beach at Gilles Bay, Texada Island with some friends. Suddenly I noticed a seabird ahead. It was a cormorant. A sea bird normally found on or under the water or flying low. I said to Pauline my wife, “What’s a cormorant doing way up here?”
We were on converging courses, and he was slightly higher than us, so I descended slightly to increase the margin. He started to descend also, so I increased my rate of decent and yelled “Watch where you are going!”
With that he dove abruptly and we hit with a loud bang. The windshield was immediately covered almost 100% with the remains of the bird and his last meal. (Which I later found out to be herring) The cowl doors were blown open and damaged. I informed the Harbour tower of my situation and told him I would divert to Pitt Meadows airport since it was slightly closer than Langley, and had wider and longer runways more suitable for a blind landing. He gave them a call to give them a heads up and shortly I switched to them and headed directly towards Pitt Meadows. They asked if I needed any emergency services and I said “Not likely, but let’s see how the landing turns out.” I was cleared straight in but couldn’t see ahead so requested and was granted an angled approach so I could see out the lower corner of the windshield for the approach. I descended to just over the threshold and then straightened it out, and then completed the landing using my peripheral vision on the sides of the runway only. It wasn’t too difficult actually. My time flying the Tiger Moth at the museum was a benefit since you fly that from the rear seat with your passenger and engine ahead.
Anyway, I have a bit of work to do fix the upper cowl again. We just finished a major restoration of this airplane last spring.
Enjoy the photos attached, and keep an eye out for those suicidal birds!

-Rick

Here's some pictures that he took! prepare to see your lunch again :-P

That's my aunt Pauline behind the plane. Oh, and that red stuff all over the front of the plane is blood and bird-bits