Meep Meep…by Brad Marks

Hello folks. As the Twain saying goes, “rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated” (I know that was embellished by Paine, but I prefer this version ha). During these last two weeks I’ve joked that I was close to knocking on that heavenly door as we toiled away preparing for the annual Haunted Trail. The stress is off now as the event was held Friday and Saturday night. Still awaiting testimonials, but from the positive feedback we heard over the course of the two nights, I’d say we had a pretty successful haunt. What I can commit to without question is I’m officially exhausted from the stress, work and woeful lack of sleep it took to wrangle the chaos into shape before the guests started arriving. We owe a big thanks to everyone who jumped in to help including family (Ron/Derek), friends (including Brad/Jan) and pretty much all the Intrigued staff (except the lawyer dept that are still upset I took away their “butt copier”). Tomorrow back on the training program for the fast approaching ultra-race – now officially 7 pounds lighter). Struggling to keep my eyes open writing this intro, so I’m going to reacquaint myself with my pillow and let Brad take you on another adventure in one of our favorite cities.

Take it away Brad.. (oh, and big thanks to Brad for keeping Intrigued HQ running smoothly while I was out battling demons and clowns in the woods).

During one of our compressed mornings in Las Vegas, we had tough choices to make.  Brian had assigned me three bird locations to visit.  However, during day one of the trip, we lost over half a day trying to get a flat tire fixed.  (See A New Low – link here)  While scheming in the hotel room the night before, Jan and I decided to visit two big locations in the same day.  Crazy, I know.  What can you do?  We had already planned many activities for after birding hours.  Early one morning, we headed to Clark County Wetlands on the edge of Las Vegas. 

As Jan and I were wandering through the Wetlands, we kept seeing opened Acme wooden crates everywhere.  Even though Merlin couldn’t pick it up, I thought I could hear a “meep meep” sound followed quickly by little clouds of dust.  Finally, as we were heading to one of the small ponds, we spotted this bird in the shadows, next to little anvil-shaped holes in the dust.

Greater Roadrunner by Brad Marks

Hit the jump to read more about a certain Coyote’s nemesis!

Greater Roadrunners (Geococcyx californianus) are a bit smaller than I expected.  After all, a popular kids cartoon of the 1960s and early 1970s, and nearly perpetual reruns thereafter, lead us to believe that a Roadrunner was every bit as tall as Wile E. Coyote.  I can tell you that is not the case.  I can also tell you this one was not afraid of us at all, even with the big glass pointed in its general direction.  The first photos were zoomed in all the way, just to get something in the tin.  But as we moved forward to catch better images, the Roadrunner was moving towards us.  Not in an aggressive manner, though I was watching out for falling safes.  It was merely trying to get past us to where it wanted to go.  I had to keep zooming out with the lens and quickly reached the minimum zoom of my lens range.  It just kept walking towards us, unconcerned about humans moving through its space.  I was crouched down and delicately balanced, trying to get some eye-to-eye photos, and unable to retreat quickly enough to keep the whole bird in the viewfinder.

The Roadrunner we spotted was every bit of the described two feet from the end of its bill to the tip of its long tail.

Greater Roadrunner by Brad Marks

We didn’t see the typical airborne foot fluttering followed by the cloud of dust and a noise as it disappeared.  (See here for an example.)  Nor did we see its legs running in a circular motion as it sped along the ground.  It was walking, much like a raven or crow does.

Real Roadrunner calls don’t sound anything like the “meep meep” of the cartoons.  They make more of a cooing, or a growling sound, depending on whether they are trying to win a mate or are establishing territory.

Greater Roadrunner by Brad Marks

Look closely, and you’ll see that this Roadrunner had very long eyelashes, and very intense eyes.  The crop on top of its head was mostly matted down and not sticking up like the TV would have us believe. We did catch it elevated just a tiny bit as it ran away past us at the end.  Still no clouds of dust though.  Like it would really matter, because a Roadrunner can outpace an average human runner (non-Olympian) over moderate distances (15 MPH vs. 8-10 MPH for a human).  They are also very adept at avoiding protruding roots on trail runs . . . just sayin’.

Greater Roadrunner by Brad Marks

When they aren’t running away from coyotes, or falling Acme safes, a pair of Roadrunners will raise 2-6 eggs, once or twice a year.  The male brings twigs for the nest, while the female creates a nest 4-8 inches deep and up to 17 inches in diameter, several feet off the ground.  Incubation is about 19 days.  The parents may continually add to the nest side walls as the hatchlings grow over the course of 2-3 weeks. 

Roadrunners have been known to kill rattlesnakes, but usually they do that in pairs.  One distracts the snake while the other sneaks in to grab the snake by the head and bashes it against any available anvil-shaped rock.  While the cartoon versions of coyotes are no threat, real coyotes are a threat, and are capable of running twice as fast as a roadrunner.  Greater Roadrunners will fly when they have to (usually escaping a predator), but prefer to sprint to chase down a meal.  Can’t blame them really, with the airline restrictions and security these days.

Greater Roadrunner by Brad Marks

We were able to capture a photo of the racing stripe above its eye.  In better light, it’s a brighter white stripe with bright blue on the front, and fading to “pull me over bright red” on the trailing edge of the stripe.

As we left the area, I thought I saw a “Free Bird Seed” sign pointing past the edge of the trail.  We looked, but didn’t find a wily coyote nearby.

Greater Roadrunner by Brad Marks

Thank you for reading.  If you want to see more Greater Roadrunner photos, please visit here.

Credits:

Thanks again to Jan and Allyson for proofreading and editing.  Thanks to Jan for some of the photos in this article. 

In closing…boo!

42 thoughts on “Meep Meep…by Brad Marks”

      1. Precisely Ted. I wish some of those would come back. I remember being transfixed for about two hours each Saturday morning. Plus a shot at seeing “Conjunction Junction” each Saturday.

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          1. One of my English papers in college was the use of And, But and Or to start a sentence. That song was running through my head the entire time I was writing it.

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    2. Ditto Brian. I really thought they would be taller. And faster. And have little Acme crates as obstacles to run around. Handful of days until Jan and I go after UK birds. Forecasts looks wet, do we need our Wellies?

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      1. And they don’t even go ‘meep meep’? I’m disconsolate!
        Oh yeah pack the wet weather gear. It’s been somewhat soggy of late. Not too bad here (chucking it down all day!) but parts of the midlands have had more than 4x a months rainfall in a few days, so plenty of floods! Flippers might be better than wellies… and a snorkel.

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  2. I’m happy you survived that haunt trail. The beast looks great. Great roadrunner shots, Brad. We had a plague of roadrunners 24 years ago. Twenty of them would line up on the roof to catch the sunrise, and they would make all their crazy noises. When we were working in the garden, a dozen roadrunners would walk in a circle around us, sizing us up, trying to determine if they could whack us on the ground and eat us like I often saw them doing to the unfortunate robbins and sparrows they caught. They persisted for two years and then disappeared after they ate all the lizards, snakes, and grasshoppers on our property. I see a roadrunner passing through occasionally, but I have not seen them in large numbers like that since. We also have not had many grasshoppers since then, either. Our lizard and snake populations have recovered.

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    1. Thanks Tim. You observed behaviors in roadrunners I’d not heard of before. Oh sure, a couple of them will team up to take down a snake. But never thought they might size up gardeners. This one was silent, never once sticking out its tongue or going “meep meep”. Though fewer grasshoppers might not be a bad thing.

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    2. Thanks Tim! The beast will get some additional attention over the off season – need to redo the wings to make them lighter, automate them along with the head and first of all get that damn tail on that had to be clipped at the last second due to lack of time. Probably going to carve a head as well as the Goat devil mask I used is a little small for the frame. All in all, came out pretty good and definitely learned a LOT during the construction.

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        1. We have big plans for Beast 2.0 and already starting work on it. Next year we will probably focus on improving the scare quality of all our existing props rather than taking on a new big project. Linda is getting fussy about having her basement consumed by my gigantic projects the entire year ha.

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            1. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I had not heard that – traitors to the cause. Transworld (the industry Halloween trade expo) partnered with a Christmas expo this year which was a bit unnerving, but it did give me a chance to check out some lighting options Linda wants me to add (for both the haunted trail and our Christmas display). You can see a bit of that areaaround the 25 minute mark of this walk-thru – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCpHQKMllH8

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            2. Are you going to add a strobing light tunnel to your Christmas display? Mixing Halloween and Christmas is scary.

              I’m thinking of sending you my bloody selfie that Laurie wouldn’t let me post as my application to be a ghoul on your Haunt Trail next year. A tree branch of all evil beat me over the head during our lunchtime walk. I bled all over myself during the remaining half-mile walk to the office. The funny thing was that I walked into the office all bloody, and no one noticed. I guess it’s too close to Halloween.

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            3. Unfortunately we cannot have strobes or disruption tunnels because they can trigger Linda’s migraines and the last thing I want to be dealing with in the midst of all the other Halloween/Christmas work is helping her get over that.

              I was late to your email (since responded) and finally noticed you got whacked pretty hard. They tricked you into staring at the ground for root dangers and then smack, right to the noggin. I would be a little concerned if no one noticed in the office. Either they are not concerned about your health or they are too used to bloody people walking into the building and numb to it – you might want to put up some security cameras around your desk!

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            6. Laurie can get some bad ones, too. She used to take Midrin, and it worked really well, but after the patent ran out and the drug companies couldn’t make as much money from it, they found complications with Midrin, and the government banned it.

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            7. I can’t remember what Linda uses when the bad ones hit, but she has been able to do a good job of controlling it with her diet (no nuts, lemon, chocolate, etc). Knock on wood, but it has been a while now since she has had one of the debilitating ones.

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    1. I’ve always heard the best camera for any photo is the one you have with you. Amazing how a memory of the event provides extra sharpness and clarity, above and beyond what the photo can provide. Thanks for stopping by Ed.

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  4. Not having grown up with your roadrunner cartoons, I didn’t have any preconceived notions about this bird and thought (and still think) that it’s very cool. The individuals I have encountered weren’t as enamored of photos as yours, and I think your images are great, showing wonderful details.

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    1. Thanks Tanja. Our roadrunner must have been desensitized to humans, because it really didn’t care if we were there or not. For entertainment value, look up some of the old Roadrunner cartoons, but try to view them through the eyes of an 8-10 year old kid on a Saturday morning, still in their pajamas.

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  5. I’m so impressed, you got the trace of blue-green iridescence in his tail feathers and primaries. Beautiful shots of his eyes, looking like polished tiger’s eye – and are those blue eyelashes?? Great photos, and a wonderful experience.

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    1. Wow! Coming from you Sam that means a lot, thank you. I was impressed with how marble-like the eyes appeared. The sun was perfect to catch the colors, better to be lucky than good sometimes. When it was running towards me, there wasn’t much opportunity to reposition. Still, I’m happy with the brief encounter and photos we were able to capture.

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