Greater Roadrunner

Not very colorful, but oh so comical.

You don't have to be fan of the Roadrunner cartoon to be enamored with the carryings-on of the Greater Roadrunner.

All birds spend a good portion of their day searching for food, but the Greater Roadrunner always LOOKS to be LOOKING for food. He has an intensity of purpose to his look you cannot deny.

Catching critters like roaches is a piece of cake for the Greater Roadrunner.

Taking care to NOT become someone else's lunch is a major concern. As fast as he appears in the cartoons, a willy coyote is twice as fast.  The speedy ground hugging Greater Roadrunner is a not-so-adept flyer.

Allan

Credits: Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds

Greater Roadrunner

   Born to run...perhaps rather preferring not to fly, a Greater Roadrunner is quite a challenge to catch.

Running with head and tail nearly parallel to the ground, the roadrunner uses its long tail as a rudder for balance.

(Click any picture to enlarge.)

A roadrunner is a meat eater. In this case it's worm meat, but you get the idea.

Typical menu items include small mammals, snakes, lizards, centipedes, scorpions and even other birds.

          When threatened, the roadrunner displays a vivid orange and blue crescent behind each eye.

The colors inform other birds, as it did this Mourning Dove, that landing too close is unwise.

No further argument was necessary...the dove left.

Males and females look alike. They re-establish their lifelong bond each spring through rituals of dance and bowing. According to Cornell Lab of Ornithology: Mating is equally orchestrated: the male roadrunner leaps onto his partner’s back while holding a mouse or other food offering, which both partners grasp as they copulate. Afterward he circles his mate, bowing, cooing and flicking his tail in a stylized display.

Born to run, yes, but the belief that the roadrunner always gets away from Wily E. Coyote is a cartoon myth.

Coyotes can easily outrun a roadrunner and are major threats to them.

Still, over a million roadrunners are estimated to live in this world. Sixty-two percent of them live in the Southwestern United States.

From Southern California and now expanding all the way east to Louisiana, the Greater Roadrunner is a survivor.

Allan

Credits: Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds, Sibley Guide to Birds

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

I was quite surprised by the cuckoo bird flying over our house.  I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. 

The Yellow-billed Cuckoo is a new species for me, a first-ever sighting. 

Yellow-billed Cuckoos are not rare, just unusual in Wisconsin.  They are common in Texas, Louisiana and the States of the lower Mississippi River, but not here in cooler Wisconsin.

He landed on a bare branch and looked back at me to contemplate his next move. Unsure and uneasy, he watched me only momentarily before bending low in preparation to depart. He showed me his boldly spotted under tail, then disappeared in a matter of seconds.

The Yellow-billed Cuckoo is a slender, fine-featured bird with a bill of yellow that reflects his name.  Seen from the back, he’s rather unimpressive in shades of tan/gray, but seen from below, his belly, bill and long spotted tail detail a more complex bird.

A rusty-rufous patch on his wings and a proudly set black eye completes a portrait of an interesting bird.

The Yellow-billed Cuckoo is not alone in this world…he has family…a large family.

One close relative is the White-browed Coucal. This White-browed Coucal was no more inclined to linger than was the Yellow-billed Cuckoo. I encounter him last year in Kenya, Africa. He allowed me two pictures, that’s all, both identical, before also disappearing.

I’ve since learned that I was extremely lucky to even see a White-browed Coucal, for any length of time, as they are very wary of humans.  They quickly dive into the understory when approached and that’s the last you will see of them.

The Greater Roadrunner of the southwestern United States is also a relative of the Yellow-billed Cuckoo. 

Fortunately, this roadrunner was far friendlier.   He not only posed for me on a rock, he waited politely, lingering to make sure I was finished shooting before he left…or so I'd like to think.

Some birds migrate by means of the stars and/or the earth’s electromagnetic field.  Being nocturnal migrants, they are vulnerable to collisions with tall building, wind turbines, antennas, cell and radio towers. Therefore, migrating at night has a danger in contemporary times, a danger that didn’t even present a hundred years ago. 

Birds didn’t evolve with man-made obstacles taller than the treetops, consequently they have no expectations of objects in their path. It’s a painful lesson for birds and a problem not likely to resolve itself to the Yellow-billed Cuckoo’s satisfaction anytime soon. 

Sadly, Yellow-billed Cuckoos have largely been expatriated from the western United States, where they once were widespread. Due to habitat loss, they are now listed as a Common Bird in Steep Decline.  

Allan

Credits:

The Sibley Guide to Birds, Second Edition

Wikipedia

Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Yellow-billed_Cuckoo/lifehistory

http://www.kenyabirds.org.uk/wb_coucal.htm