Hitting a bird at that speed is certainly disastrous, especially for the bird. There are accounts of aircraft colliding with birds and it usually doesn't fare too well for the plane either, especially if it was a jet and a bird goes into the air intake. The engine is destroyed and that's about the time the crew bails out because pieces of what used to be a jet engine are ripping though the aircraft like shrapnel. Not a good thing at all. Fortunately for aviators it is not that common an occurrence.

I've heard the birds you refer to called a few variations like turkey vultures, chicken hawks, turkey hawks and chicken buzzards and just plain hawks or buzzards. They are raptors but also scavengers and I think they're all the same basic bird type but some people will argue to great lengths to say otherwise.