Posted By Les Conklin on Sep 30, 2015

By Tom Mangelsdorf

If the only time you’ve ever seen a roadrunner is in the Warner Brothers’ cartoons of years gone by, you need to get out more! The roadrunner is like no other bird in the Sonoran Desert, and you’ll never misidentify it if you see one. These birds are much more interesting in real life than their cartoon counterparts.

Roadrunners can be found in the less developed areas of many habitats including Arizona, New Mexico and California—and the greater Pinnacle Peak area is home to many of them. Their distinctive long tails and legs, relatively large size and clucking sounds make them easy to spot. However, they’re not so easy to just “find”…you have to be patiently looking, preferably in an area known to be home to them. Although they can fly for short distances, roadrunners prefer to stay on the ground. If threatened or startled they can reach nearly 15 miles per hour in quick bursts. Their varied diet consists of snakes (even rattlers), lizards, scorpions, and other small birds or chicks such as this area’s abundant Gambel’s quail. As one researcher described the roadrunner’s eating habits, “if it moves, they can digest it.”

Big Words, Evil Spirits and Family Life

If your curiosity runs to the scientific, our roadrunners are known as Greater Roadrunners, or Geococcyx Californianus as biologists refer to it (or Acceleratti Incredibilis if you’re a Warner Brothers aficionado). The roadrunner is the largest member of the cuckoo family (Cuculidae) in the United States. Even the roadrunner’s distinctive feet have a special name: zygodactyl—a big word to describe its four toes—two of them pointing forward and the other two pointing backward. Native American and Mexican folklore sometimes refer to their tracks as confusing to evil spirits since the devils can’t determine which way a roadrunner is travelling.

Roadrunners tend to mate for life according to scientists and usually lay around 5-6 eggs in a nest in low tree or cactus. The parents share feeding and incubating duties, and spend most of their time hunting for food for their new family. Those chicks that manage to successfully hatch and survive will generally be able to fend for themselves within a few days of leaving the nest.

Photographs

The photographs which accompany this article are of roadrunners that have adopted my yard as part of their territory over the past couple of years. There is also an abundance of quail in our neighborhood which probably accounts for why the roadrunners prefer the “plentiful menu” of quail eggs and chicks our area provides. They are wonderfully curious birds that don’t seem to mind nearby human activity if you don’t approach them too closely or quickly. Legend has it that if a roadrunner crosses your path it will assure you of a safe journey. So, here’s wishing you a very safe journey if you’re ever lucky enough to cross paths with these intriguing birds. Beep, beep.

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