Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Road Runner Digesting a Lizard Lunch

As I was walking back from the mailbox this afternoon, I spotted our neighborhood road runner.  Dr Desert Flower and I had spotted him previously in other peoples' yards, but this was the first time I saw the raptor heading into our yard!    I raced into the house to grab my camera, ran back out front and found the road runner gone!   I raced BACK inside, and found the raptor in the wall, above my grill, in the process of swallowing a whip tailed lizard, head first.  I tried to ZOOM IN to capture this unexpected lunch treat.

If you've never seen a road runner up-close, or a real one that is not in a cartoon,  picture what you'd get if you took a Lamborghini, a chicken, and a velociraptor, and made it about the size of a grown man's arm.  This road runner (I think it was a "she" and not a "he") ran along my border wall, hunting lizards who were sunning themselves.  She got one near my grill.  Then sat and completely swallowed it, before moving on to hunt for more.
After a minute or so (and about 6 pictures), she stalked off down the wall, and between the neighbor's homes behind me.  Truly a great treat, and the biggest bird I've had in my yard since a hawk came down to catch a squirrel at the bird feeder in South Carolina.  Awesome.




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