Roadrunner Gallery
I’ve had a lot of fun getting to know the resident roadrunner couple at the Ash Canyon Bird Sanctuary. These are large birds, gregarious, comfortable around people once they learn that people are not a threat. And they learn fast. They are intelligent, and crafty, on par with crows and ravens. They have excellent memories.
When viewed up close they reveal delicate colors and features that you can’t see when they are darting across the road. In addition to the blue and orange facial skin behind their eyes, their crests, mantle feathers, and tails are beautifully iridescent. And they have long, lush eye lashes, like something from a Maybelline mascara ad. The hairy feathers around their beaks are called rictal bristles. These probably have a sensory function, and aid in proprioception.
Roadrunners are sexually monomorphic, but they don’t have a problem sorting things out, even if I can’t distinguish male from female. They establish lifelong pair bonds, reinforced by elaborate mating behavior. This pair has been at Ash Canyon for a few years. They will share nest-building duties, and both parents will care for hatchling chicks. I have never seen roadrunner chicks, but they must be impossibly cute. I’m hopeful that they will have a nest full of babies soon.
For desert birds, they are more at home around water than you might expect. In another setting I’ve watched roadrunners ambushing dragonflies in the vegetation around a pond’s edge. They jump right in, grab a bite, and then shake themselves dry. At Ash Canyon they like to bathe in the fountains. In the middle photos in this set the bird is getting a drink and a bath, then twisting and fluff-drying in the sun.
And just to clear up any Looney Tunes-inspired confusion, roadrunners are fast, but they are not coyote fast. In a sprinting contest, the coyote wins every time, even without an assist from Acme® rocket skates.
Greater roadrunner / correcaminos norteño (Geococcyx californianus) at the Ash Canyon Bird Sanctuary in Cochise County, Arizona. Even though I refer to them as “resident” birds, none of the birds at the sanctuary are confined, and there are no aviaries.
These photos are for @axelrod, who loves roadrunners as I do.
titsay
stormborns
gummygunk
