I’ve been running into what I’m convinced is the same roadrunner in the Sandia foothills for the last six or seven weeks. The dead giveaway for me is that this particular roadrunner clearly prefers sticking to the trails. While roadrunners cross roads and trails all the time, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one follow a trail before.
The first day I noticed him,1 he ran down the trail in front of me for a full five or six minutes (I never did get a shot). He’s been on or very close to a trail every other time I’ve run into him as well. When I chase him,2 he always heads down a trail to get away from me.
The other day, in my ongoing attempt to get a decent shot, I managed to chase him off trail onto a cholla. He didn’t last there long though, and I swear I could almost see his legs forming a spinning circle as he ran down it, just like the roadrunner in the Warner Bros. cartoons.3
Another reason I think these photos are all of the same roadrunner is that he keeps his crest up really often, way more often than I’m used to seeing. I got pretty close to him once and was thrilled to see he was also showing those beautiful orange and blue colors around his eyes.
He’s shown me some other beautiful colors too. Look at those beautiful iridescent green-blue feathers along his side and near his tail.
Beep beep!
I’ve been thinking of this roadrunner as male so I’ll refer to it that way in this post. The truth is that I haven’t got a clue what its gender is.
True confessions: I chase him almost every time I see him.
I also kinda sorta have a story about Roadrunner’s nemesis, Wile E. Coyote, but don’t have enough photos yet to illustrate it.