| The Roadrunner We have a Roadrunner who comes every year around this time to hang out in the parking lot of the ranger station. This year he has an especially funny hairdo. I mean all Roadrunners have crests, but this guy's gray and brown head feathers are poking out about 3-4 inches in every direction! I doubt he requested such an obnoxious hairdo... If I were him I would not go back to the hairdresser he last visited. This morning he, or perhaps it is a she, is busy catching lizards. He takes off full speed across the parking lot to catch one, then trots back rather jauntily to the bushes with his catch. Yesterday the lizard he was carrying had his tongue stretched out and flapping in the breeze and it was about as long as his tail. It was a rather silly sight! I love watching him run. He holds his tail and his body upright as his strong stout legs carry him across the parking lot in a rather clownish gait. He is about two feet long from beak to tail and I often get glimpses of him while I'm working up front. Roadrunners (Geococcyx californianus) are classified as ground cuckoos. Other ground cuckoos live in Central and South America. They are uniquely adapted to living in the desert. They excrete salt through their nasal glands instead of through their urinary tracts and they reabsorb water from their feces before excretion (I know you were just dying to know that). They also reduce their activity 50% during the heat of day. When prey is less abundant in the winter months they do eat plants. Last year we did have a few rattlesnakes show up near the office and I've heard Roadrunners can catch rattlers. They can run 17 mph which is apparently fast enough to catch a rattlesnake. A rattlesnake can, "snap up a coiled rattlesnake by the tail, crack it like a whip and repeatedly slam its head against the ground till dead. It then swallows its prey whole, but is often unable to swallow the entire length at one time. This does not stop the Roadrunner from its normal routine. It will continue to meander about with the snake dangling from its mouth, consuming another inch or two as the snake slowly digests." Wow, wouldn't that be something to see? So, Roadrunners are quick, quick enough to snatch hummingbirds and dragon flies out of the air as well as catch rattlers. But 17 mph still doesn't sound that fast to me. I looked up how fast coyotes are and they can run up to 40 mph. So why didn't Wile E. Coyote ever catch the Roadrunner? Roadrunners mate in the spring and both males and females help make the small saucer-shaped nest in a cactus, bush, or small tree. The female lays 2-12 eggs and the incubation time is 18-20 days. Both males and females help incubate the eggs. Okay, that image creates a nice fuzzy feeling, but then there's this... The first chicks to hatch often crowd out the late arriving runts and these in turn are often eaten by the parents. Ah, well, ya gotta love nature! Anyway, 3-4 chicks usually survive and fledge from the nest in about 2 weeks. They usually stick around with the parents for another 2 then they're off on their own to ramble their desert home. Roadrunners can live to be 7 or 8 years old. I hope our Roadrunner is a youngster that will come back next year, and the next... Back to Poetry and Prose Back to Tarol's Homepage |