While living in California, Cory and I decided to take a long weekend trip to Tucson, Arizona in October 2019. While in Tucson, we were able to take in a lot of sites, including Tombstone, AZ and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. But the real reason we went to Tucson was to go to the Saguaro National Park and to find a Roadrunner.
Saguaro National Park's most recognizable attraction is the Saguaro Cactus. There are millions of them, all reminiscent of the cactus most commonly depicted in Looney Toons.
Living in the southwestern United States, Cory and I were able to see things that we, from the east coast only associate with National Geographic documentaries and fanciful cartoons. When you see a Saguaro cactus, the surrounding landscape and the wildlife that lives here, you kind of, almost feel like you are in a Looney Toon cartoon.
In California, around Los Angeles, Riverside, Upland, Rancho Cucamonga, Joshua Tree National Park and in Death Valley National Park we had asked locals and Park Rangers where we could spot Roadrunners; in Arizona, in Tucson, Phoenix, Saguaro National Park and Tombstone, we asked again. The response was always the same, "oh, really a Roadrunner, that is what you want to see, they are everywhere," and "oh yea, everywhere, they are in front of my house, most mornings."
Cory and I were kind of getting annoyed after a while, like our interest in this unique southwest bird was somehow more than trivial, it was almost comical. Also no one ever invited us to sit in front of their house and look for Roadrunners. The National Park Rangers weren't much better, they simply said oh yea they are everywhere. Well, we can tell you they are not everywhere, or at least they deliberately hid from us when we tried to find them. For 2 years when we could, we would look for them, with no luck. My husband and I even went to the Mojave National Preserve, where we saw a bird that we thought was a Roadrunner, but turned out to be a Cactus Wren, we only discovered this after cross referencing my photo with a bird reference book I have. Many people reading this might think, how could you mistake the two, well we never said we were well read and well educated biologists, we just like wildlife and I enjoy photographing all types of cool creatures.
The day before we were to head back home to California, we decided that we would try a local park near a residential area in Tucson, Los Morteros Conservation Area. We walked the long trail around the conservation area. My husband was excited that we found an archaeological site known as the "Village of the Mortars" in English. He geeked out about that for a while, and we continued on the path. Finally, I saw something at a distance on a branch of the abundant scrub brush in the conservation area. I asked Cory what it was and he looked with his binoculars and confirmed it was a Roadrunner. We had done our homework beforehand this time. Success! I had my camera ready the hole time we hiked, just for this occasion. I snapped pictures and walked, snapped then walked, as I creeped closer, after I had taken about 5 steps the Roadrunner leapt to the ground, ran and disappeared. In an instant it was over, the Roadrunner was there and then it was gone. I only managed 3 descent pictures in total.
As you can see from the picture at the top of this post, the Greater Roadrunner looks nothing like his Looney Toon counterpart. Maybe he looks like his cousin the Lesser Roadrunner. As this is the only individual that my husband and I ever saw, we are convinced he is the only one of his kind. Not really, but to us he is.
Maybe Wile E. Coyote caught all the other Roadrunners? We may never know.
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