High numbers of birdstrikes have been recorded in 2011, according to a new report released on Monday by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), highlighting one of the increasing dangers that aircraft encounter during actual flights.

By the end of 2011, 1,750 incidents have been reported to the ATSB, which left a strike probability of nine per cent in every 10,000 commercial aviation activities as of last year.

Birdstrikes were likely to occur during landings and take-offs, the aviation safety agency added, making the flight moments the most crucial in terms of maintaining safety while aircraft were still up in the sky.

The local domestic aviation industry, the ATSB report said, has seen considerable spikes of birdstrikes since the last decade, which had caused human fatalities in some cases that happened abroad.

"For high capacity aircraft operations, reported bird strikes have increased from 400 to 980 over the last 10 years of study," the ATSB report was quoted by Agence France Presse (AFP) as saying.

Fortunately, the agency noted that over the past 10 years, only minor injuries have been attributed to birdstrikes unlike in cases worldwide where a number of deaths marred similar incidents, which occur when animals, usually birds or bats, collide head-on with aircraft while on air.

These animals normally hit the plane's windshield or get sucked by the engine, in which case authorities label the incidents as avian ingestion.

The latter incident causes the most damages, which aviation authorities worldwide had estimated to have generated annual costs of about $US1.2 billion.

Domestic incidents so far have led to negligible damage cost, the ATSB said, based on reports that the agency has accumulated since 2002.

Emerging as the aircraft that mostly involved on birdstrikes were Airbus A320s and Boeing 737s, the report said.

"It is likely that the speed and size of these aircraft, longer take-off and landing rolls, and large turbofan engines are factors contributing to the higher rate," the agency explained.

And apart from the winged-animals, the ATSB report revealed that in some cases land-based creatures were also hit by planes while attempting to leave or hit the runway.

In most cases, the encounter was fatal on the part of the animals, which in Australia includes dogs, foxes, kangaroos and even turtles, the report said.