The Roadrunner

I'm a city boy. The only roadrunner I ever knew was the cartoon version. He was sweet and innocent. And anyone who watched the show knew what he ate, because the evil coyote often used birdseed as a lure to catch the roadrunner.

Reality is a different thing.

I met the real roadrunner this weekend. We have what is called a "view fence" in our backyard. It's a low wall with a fence of bars above it to allow us to view the desert behind our house. Very nice. Anyway, the other day I noticed a bird sitting on the lowest rung of the fence on the edge of the yard. She was half in, half out of the yard, so I couldn't really tell what she was, but I grabbed the camera that I keep handy to get her picture. Just as I looked back, this bird leaped from her perch at an approaching sparrow! She narrowly missed her prize, so she climbed up on the rock waterfall we have and waited again in front of the bird feeder we keep loaded. This wasn't an innocent roadrunner. She was a hunter!

Another sparrow came in range, and she leaped again, but missed again. Frustrated, she crept along the low wall across the yard and then jumped up onto the fence between yards. She didn't know it, but this was a prime spot for hunting birds. The neighbors kept their feeder right on the other side. She was within a foot of any approaching bird. But she wasn't patient enough. She waited a few more minutes, then jumped into the wash behind the house to find something else to scoop up.

As it turns out, roadrunners are not the same animal we've been given to believe on the cartoons. Go figure! They are ruthless hunters. They almost never eat seed, preferring meat at all times. They are indeed very fast, achieving ground speeds up to 17 miles per hour. They are faster than rattle snakes and are one of the few animals that preys on them. They use their short wings like a matador's cape to distract the snake, then dart around behind and grab it by the tail. Then they whip it around until it is beaten to death. They will eat the snake whole, tail first. If the snake is too big to swallow completely, they will run around with the uneaten portion dangling from their mouths until they can complete the task of swallowing it.

Roadrunners ... they're not the cute little guy you see on the cartoons. They're quick, able hunters capable of snatching a hummingbird out of the air. They are happy to raid a nest of baby birds and dine the easy way, or to scoop up a lizard on the run. Don't believe all you see in the Saturday cartoons.