11 August 2007

It's hot, even for roadrunners



Here at Larrapin, we have three roadrunners who visit: Randy a large male, Rhonda a reclusive female, and Ricky, pictured here. This was yesterday and it was about 99 degrees, so even the roadrunner was panting a bit.

Ricky is a small male and not the least bit shy. He tags along, no kidding, when we walk with the dogs down the drive to the mailbox. Our neighbor thinks this is pretty funny. Ricky brings sticks, deadheaded flowers, dead lizards and even the occasional mole to the window and taps to get our (or the dogs) attention. He's like a winged, two legged cat that way.

When I go out to the garden I often hear a little "whirr" sound from the hedgerow -- as if Ricky is saying, "Hey, I'm over here." He is also nosy. Just this morning I was weeding and tossing the pulled up plants in a garden cart. I went inside for a glass of water and when I returned, Ricky was on the side of the cart, making sure I wasn't stealing any of his lizards I guess. He loves the weiner dogs, especially Buster. Blue could care less. (If I can figure out how to put a video on this blog, I'll put up a typical Roadrunner/Weinter dog interaction...)

And yes, he's very very fast. One day Buster (the dachshund/jack russell cross) bolted out the front door when I opened it and Ricky happened to be standing on the patio. (Neither event is too unusual.) I was terrified for a moment that Buster would catch him. Not to worry. Ricky sprinted down the lawn with Buster close behind. Then suddenly Ricky zagged about six foot to the right -- so fast I could barely see what happened -- and hit the ground. Buster tore merrily on past, barking like mad, never realized he'd passed his prey. Ricky got up an strolled away. All in a roadrunner's day... Since he is so fast, I have many photos of Ricky just like this one:

2 comments:

Tira said...

I don't think i ever saw a pic of a roadrunner before, I only knew that bird from my childhood cartoon shows!

Unknown said...

What a delightful post--this really made me smile today. Sounds like Ricky definitely adopted all of you! Do the roadrunners stay around all year?