Prairie Wanderings: The roadrunner or greater cuckoo
By PAUL G. JANTZEN
Contributing writer
It was usually near a windbreak about three miles northwest of Peabody that Daniel Yoder and brothers Alan and Aaron saw the bird. Its long legs and erect crown convinced them that they were seeing a greater roadrunner, a member of the cuckoo family. A few days later, in late December, Michael Unruh made several sightings on the Yoder farm, and independently identified the bird.
It is difficult to identify roadrunners because they are easily confused with female and immature ring-necked pheasants. The roadrunner has longer legs, exhibits a more coarsely mottled body, and has a characteristic blue-black, erectile, shaggy head crest. While pheasants have three forward directed toes and one backward, roadrunners have two toes directed forward and two backward.
The common name of the bird originated during the days of travel by horseback and horsedrawn vehicles when the birds could outrun travelers on the road. The birds have been reported to reach running speeds of 15 to 20 miles per hour. They run with head and tail parallel to the ground.
Greater roadrunners are found in southwestern United States into central Mexico in dry to semi-dry areas with scattered shrubs. Their range expanded during the twentieth century to the north and east to include Kansas (from the Oklahoma border to the Arkansas River), Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Kansas' most stable population is probably on the Red Hills, a mixed-grass prairie with scattered redcedars and shrubs on uplands and along rivers. Documented sightings are all reports of single birds.
The food of roadrunners consists of arthropods (large insects, scorpions, spiders, sowbugs, centipedes, tarantulas), amphibians (horned toads), reptiles (lizards and small snakes), small birds or their eggs, small mammals (mice, rats), carrion, and occasional fruits and seeds. When food is very scarce, they eat their own young.
When eating small mammals, the birds stun their prey by beating them against a rock or some other object.
Rumors of roadrunners preying on quail are probably due to the roadrunners following quail to capture the insects flushed by the quail as they rush through the vegetation.
Roadrunners are occasionally preyed upon by red-tailed and Coopers hawks, but they are usually able to evade grounded predators. Eggs and nestlings may be eaten by coyotes, raccoons, striped skunks, bullsnakes and rat snakes.
A roadrunner survives dry, hot periods by reabsorbing ingested water through the linings of its rectum, ceca, and cloaca. It also consumes foods with high water content. Heat is dissipated through its respiratory system, its skin, and the processes of panting and wing extension.
In winter, the birds raise their feathers and expose the black skin of their neck and back to the sun's rays.
Roadrunners are monogamous but they renew their pair bond each spring and summer. The male bows and prances, wags his tail, and brings nesting materials and food to his mate, tapping his feet and cooing softly. Their cooing may also be heard at sunrise in spring from elevated perches.
They build nests of twigs lined with grass and feathers usually in low trees, shrubs, or in cactuses. The few eggs are incubated by the female during daytime and by the male at night. The two usually perch in the same or nearby shrubs. Of the five nests documented in Kansas, four were in Cowley County and one in Sumner County, both counties on the Kansas-Oklahoma border.
Native Americans imputed supernatural powers to the roadrunners. The Pueblo placed the birds' tracks around the dwelling of the recently deceased to mislead the evil spirits. The tracks with two forward and two backward toe prints made it difficult to know in which direction the departed could be captured, thus ensuring a safe afterlife. The birds were eaten to obtain endurance and speed. The Hopis tied the birds' feathers to the tails of their horses to benefit from the same qualities.
The greater roadrunner is the State Bird of New Mexico. When I accompanied a trucker delivering Donahue trailers to central New Mexico in 1995, I hoped to see the bird but was unsuccessful even though we traveled through miles of arid land. Even here the greater roadrunner must not be found in great numbers. (Thanks to Evan Yoder for reporting these sightings.)
