Arizona's Desert Oddball: the Roadrunner

What bird stands fourteen feet tall and constantly outwits a brilliant but short-sighted coyote? Here's a clue: beep-beep. You guessed it. But for those who didn't: it's the roadrunner cartoon character on your theater screen. In real life, the roadrunner measures about thirteen feet shorter at the shoul-der, reaches about two feet in lengthhalf of which is tail-and weighs less than a pound. Bird books and some writ-ers refer to it by such names as “lizard bird,” “snake-killer,” “chaparral cock,” “ground cuckoo,” and “clown of the desert.” Scientists list it as Geococcyx californianus. But personally, during twenty-five years of running with the leggy bird, I've never heard it called any-thing but “roadrunner.” Given the opportunity to rename it, I would call it the “General George Patton bird” because it can show up anywhere, seemingly traveling at sixty miles an hour (actually topping out at eighteen mph), takes a lot of chances, and survives. The first roadrunner I saw off the big screen was sprinting westward along the centerline of Phoenix's busy Camelback Road near 32nd Street during the after-noon rush hour. Optimistically, I gave the The bird between one and two seconds to live. It challenged a Buick, then a pickup truck with a horse in the back. Drivers seemed blasé about the bird or were unaware of the drama taking place. It made a left turn, running against traffic in a sea of spinning neoprene, zigging, zagging, never losing a feather. Again westbound, it stuck out its wing as though signaling a right turn and, when it actually made one, I promised never to tell because I didn't want to be classed with the folk who professed to have seen unidentified flying objects. The bird lifted its saucy crest, mimicked a busy paintbrush with its tail, then safely arrived at a fenced patch of desert destined for a complex of fancy offices. But East Camelback Road isn't the roadrunner's normal habitat. You're more likely to see him and his brethren buzzing through the sagebrush and chaparral country of Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and the tablelands of northern Mexico. A few vacation in southern Utah and Colorado, southwestern Kansas, central and eastern Oklahoma, and western Arkansas, and you might even spot one in Louisiana. The bird's ancestors were around during the Pleis-tocene Epoch. Some have resurfaced in fossil form at the La Brea asphalt pits in Hancock Park, Los Angeles.

As with most living creatures, what it likes to eat largely governs where the roadrunner establishes residence. That means such delicacies as small mammals; invertebrates such as grasshoppers and beetles; spiders, scorpions, lizards, and snakes. That includes rattlers; the roadrunner is said to be one of the few critters that can sidestep the lightning strike of the rattlesnake. Fictional accounts perpetuate the myth that the roadrunner spends much of its eight-toed pacing annihilating rattlesnakes. Actual encounters are probably rare. It may kill snakes only when in need of food.

When you tally its tastes and figure out its place in the ecosystem, you find the roadrunner earns predator classification. Early settlers regularly tamed roadrunners and considered them on a parallel plane with cats: they served dual roles as pets and inexpensive exterminators.

A real-life episode a decade ago, involving a roadrunner at lunch, caused my wife, Vicki, at least temporarily to shift into the love-hate mode.

A few miles north of Cave Creek, northeast of Phoenix, we were working quietly to get into photographic range of a covey of Gambel's quail. Among them flitted numerous chicks, little guys not fully feathered for flying. A roadrunner materialized, moving almost imperceptibly, intermittently turning to stone. The target had been selected; no wolf stalked more skillfully.

Imagine a bird that prefers running to flying, doesn't care to sing, eats almost anything, and is a loner of the first water... Meet Arizona's Desert Oddball, the Roadrunner

"It's after a chick," I whispered to Vicki. An instant later, the bird became a blur as its beak flashed. The adult quail rushed to the rescue, eyeing this Goliath like David without slings, but too late. It was all over for the chick. Within a few seconds, the adults had accepted the fact and returned to pecking at insects and seeds as if nothing had happened. The roadrunner disappeared with its tiny victim.

An infant roadrunner enters the world in a usually well-concealed nest of sticks and twigs located as high as fifteen feet in a tree or shrub. It may have the company of six or seven brothers and sisters. Within three weeks, it is likely to be foraging for its own food, and, once out of the tree or shrub, it seems to have a disdain for returning. It prefers hotfooting on the ground to flying, and it will jump off high perches to race automobiles.

Roadrunners seem to choose the solitary life-style. Although I once counted four within a square mile, I have never seen two closer than several hundred yards from each other. But the fact that there are little roadrunners testifies to the exceptions. One tale of confirmation came from my now deceased Mexican friend, amateur naturalist José Espinosa. The action centered just behind his home at Second Estuary, a few miles south of Puerto Penasco, Sonora: "A male roadrunner came down the road carrying a small dead rattlesnake. It had coiled it like a cowboy does his reata, perhaps to keep from stepping on it. An excited female came from the brush and seemed to beg for the snake. The male backed away from her; then the two began a strange dance. This went on for perhaps a minute; then they mated, with the male still gripping the snake in its bill and looking up for the hawks, who are their enemies. When it was over, the female asked for the snake again, and this time the male dropped it in front of her."

Joe passed up what I interpreted as time to smile. Instead, he said in all seriousness, "The roadrunner is a very interesting bird."

Anyone who knows the roadrunner has to agree. Whole-heartedly.

James Tallon is a contributing editor of Arizona Highways. Although best known for his outdoor photography and writing, he also has published fiction.

Selected Reading

The Birds of Arizona, by Alan R. Phillips, Joe Marshall, and Gale Monson. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1978. Available for $41, postage included, from Arizona Highways, 2039 West Lewis Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85009; telephone (602) 258-1000.

Annotated Checklist of the Birds of Arizona, by Gale Monson and Alan R. Phillips. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1981.

Field Guide to the Birds of North America, edited by Shirley L. Scott. National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C., 1983.