Skyhawk 172/Cutlass 172
Flight Crew Private
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 80; Flight Crew Total 266; Flight Crew Type 160
Situational Awareness
Conflict NMAC; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Bird / Animal
Flight Crew Took Evasive Action
Human Factors
Approaching ZZZ while en route on a cross country flight; I experienced a near miss with a red and white low wing plane. I was flying at 500 AGL 6 miles south west of the field I decided to climb a bit and turn left to keep some distance between my flight path and the airport area. I lifted the nose and began climbing. After a brief climb (perhaps 100 feet) I saw some birds and leveled off; simultaneously increasing my left turn rate to continue further from the airport area. As I leveled off I saw the other plane for the first time. He was directly in front of and slightly below my flight path. I made an aggressive turn to the right while gaining as much altitude as I could. I'm not sure he ever saw me as his flight path never changed. I confirmed clearance from him and returned to my left turn and continued my flight as planned. I was monitoring CTAF during this whole time; but did not make any radio calls myself. There were no radio calls during this time that I received. My plane is not equipped with ADS-B. I believe we both may have assumed there was no traffic in the area thus neither of us made calls over CTAF. Next time I will either give more room for deviating around an airport or make a radio call with my intended path. I also didn't spend all that much time scanning for traffic below me since I was at 500 AGL myself. Clearly this is a lack of situational awareness on my part and will be a focused point of improvement moving forward.
C172 pilot reported a NMAC with traffic while avoiding birds around a non-towered airport.