| There is this friend who has recently been given the name "Roadrunner" because she carries this beeper. No, she isn't a doctor yet; but, in the meantime, she carries this beeper because of her husband. She will say, when it is time to pick him up from work, "Oh, oh, I am beeping." Everyone would always ask, "Why are you beeping?" Then she has to explain. You know those little roadrunners are always going around "beeping". |
Encyclpoedia Britannica. Roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus.
Russ Kinne-Photo Researchers/EB Inc.
also called CHAPARRAL COCK, either of two species of terrestrial cuckoos, especially Geococcyx californianus (see photograph), of the deserts of Mexico and the southwestern United States. It is about 56 cm (22 inches) long, with streaked olive-brown and white plumage, a short shaggy crest, bare blue and red skin behind the eyes, stout bluish legs, and a long, graduated tail carried at an upward angle. Clumsy in flight and tiring rapidly, the bird usually prefers to run along roads or across sagebrush, chaparral, or mesquite flats. It feeds on insects, lizards, and snakes. Reptilian prey is pounded to death with the bird's stout bill, then swallowed, headfirst. It lays from 2 to 12 (usually 3 to 5) white eggs in a substantial nest of twigs low in a cactus or small tree.
The lesser roadrunner (G. velox) is a slightly smaller (46 cm, or 18 in.), buffier, and less streaky bird, of Mexico and Central America.
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