by CKR
Breaking news! As the sun was going down, I looked up from reading and saw on my deck a roadrunner. Just outside the sliding glass door. A roadrunner.
You may recall that I mentioned in my Tuesday blogging of a week or so ago that I saw a roadrunner a few hundred feet or so from my house. Well, here he/she is.
She jumped up on a chair in my outdoor eating area and fluffed out as if she were getting ready to roost for the night. She was aware of me, but I stayed back, and it occurred to me to get my camera. She tried to get comfortable on the chair back, but it just wasn't quite right. She was looking for something higher, and, after I took a couple of extraordinarily bad photos (below the jump), she flapped up to, I think the top of the outdoor light fixture. Part of the reason the photos are bad are that, in the natural instinct to perch where photos are most difficult, she found a place behind the screen on the door.
The temptation to look and get another photo was almost overwhelming, but I resisted. I have now found that it is not possible to see that light fixture from any window in the house.
I have some cracked corn that I didn't want to put out because of the squirrels. But they've been less populous over the summer, and the deck or patio should be reasonably safe. Besides, a roadrunner may be willing to take on a squirrel.
Tomorrow I'll wake early and try to get some good photos. And I'll put out a dish of cracked corn. But I have to remind myself not to be too eager and scare him.
