BEEP BEEP!

Description

The legendary Roadrunner is famous for its distinctive appearance, its ability to eat rattlesnakes and its preference for scooting across the American deserts, as popularized in Warner Bros. cartoons.

The Roadrunner is a large, black-and-white, mottled ground bird with a distinctive head crest. It has strong feet, a long, white-tipped tail and an oversized bill.

It ranges in length from 20 to 24 inches from the tip of its tail to the end of its beak. It is a member of the Cuckoo Family (Cuculidae), characterized by feet with 2 forward toes and 2 behind.

When the Roadrunner senses danger or is traveling downhill, it flies, revealing short, rounded wings with a white crescent. But it cannot keep its large body airborne for more than a few seconds, and so prefers walking or running (up to 17 miles per hour) usually with a clownish gait.

Vocalization

The Roadrunner makes a series of 6 to 8, low, dovelike coos dropping in pitch, as well as a clattering sound by rolling mandibles together.

Tail

The Roadrunner has a long, graduated tail carried at an upward angle.

Legs

The Roadrunner has long stout legs.

Behavior

The Roadrunner is uniquely suited to a desert environment by a number of physiological and behavioral adaptations

Its carnivorous habits offer it a large supply of very moist food
It reabsorbs water from its feces before excretion
A nasal gland eliminates excess salt, instead of using the urinary tract like most birds
It reduces its activity 50% during the heat of midday
Its extreme quickness allows it to snatch a humming bird or dragonfly from midair.

Habitat

The Roadrunner inhabits open, flat or rolling terrain with scattered cover of dry brush, chaparral or other desert scrub.

Food & Hunting

The Roadrunner feeds almost exclusively on other animals, including insects, scorpions, lizards, snakes, rodents and other birds. Up to 10 % of its winter diet may consist ofplant material due to the scarcity of desert animals at that time of the year.

Because of its lightening quickness, the Roadrunner is one of the few animals that preys upon rattlesnakes. Using its wings like a matador's cape, it snaps up a coiled rattlesnake by the tail, cracks it like a whip and repeatedly slams 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.

Breeding

When spring arrives, the male Roadrunner, in addition to acquiring food for himself, offers choice morsels to a female as an inducement to mating. He usually dances around her while she begs for food, then gives her the morsel after breeding briefly.

Both parents collect the small sticks used for building a shallow, saucer-like nest, but the female actually constructs it in a bush, cactus or small tree. She then lays from 2 to 12 white eggs over a period of 3 days, which results in staggered hatching. . Incubation is from 18-20 days and is done by either parent, though preferably the male, because the nocturnally incubating males maintain normal body temperature.

The first to hatch often crowd out the late-arriving runts, which are sometimes eaten by the parents. Usually only 3 or 4 young are finally fledged from the nest after about 18 days. These remain near the adults for up to 2 more weeks before dispersing to the surrounding desert.

In the Sonoran and Mojave deserts of California where there is only one rainy season, Roadrunners nest in Spring, the only time there is abundant prey to raise a brood. In the Sonoran Desert of Arizona, they breed again in August or September after summer rains increase their food sources.

I went out to lunch today with my husband. We had a great time and we were treated to a wonderful sight. The roadrunner! It's been awhile since I have seen them in the back yard, running accross the fence. If you have never seen these birds, I must tell you they are BIG! Now I find out they are a memeber of the cuckoo family. (Maybe that's why I like them so much, reminds me of loved ones!) In my best southern valley girl voice: "Like it was totally awesome." Imay become a birder yet!  Next thing, I'll be looking for a Nightengale. Every night that Luke the wonder dog and I go walking, we walk by a tree and I know there is a bird in there and he always scares me, even though I know he's there. I think it's a game with him. He waits until I think he is NOT there and then suddenly, he lets out with his "hoo hoo hoo hooooooooo" Looks like I would get it by now! When will I ever learn?