Sure-footed roadrunner’s idea of fun is running down snakes
I was in a doctor’s waiting room when I heard a familiar reedy whirrrwhirrr sound coming from the parking lot. Roadrunner!
I peeked through the window blinds to see the brownish bird with its long tail and outstretched neck racing hither and thither in the parking lot, pausing to grab a bug off the pavement, then eventually heading beneath some bushes.
It’s the same behavior the bird would have on the rugged terrain of West Texas, where you would expect to see him. But you’ll find roadrunners around Houston, too.
Readers frequently report seeing the birds in parking lots at grocery stores, shopping centers or even in the streets around their neighborhoods. The roadrunner used to be a regular sight around Houston — before the city boomed with buildings and roadways to displace the prairies and fields.
But newly built communities — shopping districts, office complexes and medical centers — with landscaped parking lots provide the open, vegetated habitat roadrunners favor. Besides, parking lots provide roadrunners with ready meals of insects, mice and
human food scraps.
Community residents should appreciate that roadrunners are the mortal enemy of snakes.
Master-planned communities within forests north of Houston have opened up space for roadrunners, which don’t particularly like dense woods. And no matter what the suburb, we welcome the paisano, the Spanish name for roadrunner. Paisano means “fellow countryman” or neighbor.
Roadrunners are embedded into American consciousness via the iconic cartoon character, Road Runner. Road Runner was always outmaneuvering Wile E. Coyote. Road Runner also had a signature catchphrase: “be-beep-be-beep.”
Sorry, but real roadrunners don’t beep. Instead, they sing a hollow, gurgling coo-cooo-coooo sound like a dove or utter the rattling whirr call that I heard. Females can make a barking sound, while both sexes have a variety of other sounds, including whining and beak clapping (the latter sounding like castanets used by Spanish dancers).
When standing still, the brownish bird will raise its head in perky fashion to reveal a brushy crest with an aqua band behind the eye that transitions into a red patch.
The birds occasionally fly but only for short distances at a low level.
When running, it stretches 2 feet horizontally from beak to tail, holding its neck straight out like a sword’s hilt for the robust hook-tipped beak. The birds can race 18 mph on their long, powerful legs and big feet. Its feet have two toes facing forward and two backward, leaving tracks shaped like Xs.
It’s no wonder this frequent roadside sprinter is known as roadrunner.