Chronicles of Las Cruces: The Summer 2011 Visit: A Roadrunner Sighting

Catching sight of one of these elusive birds is one of the great joys of our trips to Las Cruces, although the process is somewhat different to the processes that I have experienced in previous bird watching adventures. I have trooped into swamps to see great blue herons, walked around ponds looking for red wing black birds and other waterfowl, I have stood guard near hummingbird feeders hoping to catch a glimpse of the faux insects, but the process for spotting a roadrunner seems to be something along the lines of “just do your own thing and suddenly, out of no where you will spot one.

On our first trip to Las Cruces, it happened on our next to last full day of the visit. We had been looking, searching for one without success the whole time we were there. We were driving on a cross road, near some main roads outside of Alamogordo (great town name, lousy town…) when two of them burst out from one side of the road, across the street in front of us and into a parking lot on the other side. We stopped, backed up and found them hiding in some brush and got to see them sprint across the parking lot into the nearby desert. They were everything we had hoped for, got a couple of poor pictures and then continued on our way. A rather chance encounter to say the least.


This trip we got the sighting over early, on day two of our adventure but did not get to see another one the entire trip. We got into the habit of going to a local café for coffee in the morning because they had WIFI and we could hook up the iPad while we woke up and got ready to explore. Acoss from the café was a McDonalds. As we arrived that day, there was a small group of people – mostly either teens or young adults, in the parking lot and they were obviously searching for something. That something, a roadrunner, was hiding in a clump of vegetation along the parking lot edge. When they got too close, he sprinted across the lot, thru the drive thru lane and into the brush along the divider of the two areas. He was quick but I got a good glimpse of him. He seems like a youngster, smaller that the others I had seen. But then he was gone. Another chance encounter.



I tweeted about it once we were inside the café with our coffee, making a remark about how he must have been looking to try the new McDonald’s frozen lemonade but I was just glad I got a chance to see him. I’m note sure I could say a trip to Las Cruces was a success without a roadrunner sighting!