The Roadrunner’s Nest
I
sat crouched in a narrow band of shade under a sixty-foot-tall
saguaro cactus, waiting for them to appear. The time was
eight-thirty in the morning. I had been waiting since five.
For seven mornings I had come to the same remote spot in the Sonoran Desert, in southern Arizona. I was there to observe roadrunners, the quick-to-vanish birds made famous by cartoons. I was writing a book on roadrunners, and I knew that seeing them in the wild would make my book better.
I began searching for roadrunners in the spring, aware that pairs set up nests and raise chicks during this season. I looked near the ground in mesquite shrubs, palo verde trees, and cholla cactus, hoping to find messy leftover roadrunner nests made of twigs the year before. Road-runners tend to build new nests on top of old ones.
After a week, I spotted two birds. I was passing a chuparosa, or “hummingbird bush,” brilliant with red flowers. The roadrunners darted out from under it.
The birds moved briskly on long skinny legs. They raised and lowered mops of shaggy crest feathers, and flipped their seven-inch-long tail feathers. Roadrunners use their tails for balance when running.
Roadrunners have an orange-and-blue patch of skin beside each eye. I always noticed those colors first when the birds came into view.
Their feathers were drab shades of brown and black mixed with white. The tail feathers were streaked with iridescent barbs that flashed green and purple in the sun.
That first day, the roadrunners performed a courtship dance. They dashed in wild circles. Suddenly, one halted and stood statue-still, its round amber eyes full of light. The second bird grabbed a twig off the ground and presented it to the first, a gift to seal their partnership.
I
returned to the spot each day, leaving bits of boiled chicken
to ensure their return. Roadrunners eat snakes, lizards,
mice, beetles, spiders, and now and then a baby quail. Food
is scarce in the desert, so my offerings were welcome. The
pair grew used to me.
Soon after “my pair” finished building their nest, six white eggs appeared in the nest bowl. The hen lays eggs over a period of days, so they hatch at different times.
In about three weeks, six road-runner chicks, skin as black as coal and bodies naked of feathers, squawked for food. The little ones kept both parents on the run. One parent brought fence lizards and stink bugs. The other searched out horned lizards and fat grass-hoppers, delivering prey by holding it firmly in its stout bill.
One day I counted five chicks, not six. One was missing. I wondered if it had died because it was frail or if a predator had snatched it.
Early one morning, a coyote came slinking around a mesquite shrub, nose to the ground, yellow eyes on the lookout for fresh bird meat.
The roadrunners boldly chased the coyote away, but it was soon back sniffing around. After three charges the coyote went away for good, tail between its legs.
In a few weeks the little road-runners sprouted feathers that looked like porcupine quills. They resembled pincushions, not baby birds. They braved the world beyond the nest for short periods each day, and their antics were fun to watch. They played chase games and hide-and-seek, as so many baby animals do.
The parents fed the chicks until they were a month and a half old. Once they were able to find food on their own, the parents quit hunting prey for them.
One day, a rattlesnake crept across the hot desert sand, the heat-sensing organs in its head telling it that five small, warm prey animals were near. The roadrunner parents worked as a team, as they had with the coyote. They leaped and danced around the reptile, which twisted itself into a tight coil. The snake struck repeatedly, missing its moving targets every time.
It took just minutes for one of the birds to grab the snake’s slender neck in its bill and snap the spine. For hours afterward, the bird went around with the snake dangling from its bill. It takes time to swallow such a big meal.
I stopped watching the nest when the youngsters, at two months of age, were ready to scatter and live on their own. It was hard to break away from “my roadrunner family.” Whenever I see a roadrunner now, dashing over the ground, I hail it as I would an old friend.
