New Mexico Safari

One of the more exciting things for me in moving to Las Cruces, was the opportunity to see lots of new animals and birds. Not that I have seen all that New England has to offer, but that is something I enjoy doing this in some of my free time. I fed the birds in my backyard. I saw lots of animals in my yard too, like fox, deer, turkey, hawks, raccoons, porcupine and assorted small rodents like squirrels, chipmunks and bats. I do not think that I would be able to live in an area bereft of our animal friends.

When we visited Las Cruces in the past, I set my sights low, very low as a matter of fact. All I wanted to see was a roadrunner. Having grown up on Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons, I knew that every desert has roadrunners.

I asked our friends where I could go to be guaranteed to see one and they laughed at me. Seems I forgot the “Animal Watchers” first rule of thumb which is if you look for an animal/bird, you will not see it. Well, while driving along a small side road just outside of town, I saw my first roadrunner, a pair actually which I documented here.  

When our kids came to visit I told them that I really hoped we would get to see one and sure enough, one day, while looking at a couple of neighborhoods we had researched and wanted to show the kids, we saw on just outside an apartment complex among the cactus and sidewalks. Everyone, especially me, was excited.

In late March, our friend Mary Jane and her daughter Kristen visited us and I so wanted them to see a roadrunner. Unfortunately Kristen left without seeing one but on the last day she was here, MJ was along for a sightseeing tour of the Picacho Hill area and a roadrunner appeared. He jumped onto a stone wall. Took a few steps and was gone on the other side. Just as disappointment set in, he reappeared several feet further down the wall. He stood for a second, revved up and did the roadrunner dash for at least 40 feet along the top of the wall. Head down, he was in full Looney Tune mode, missing only the “beep-beep” and the pile of Acme bird seed. Just wonderful.

I have begun to feel that to me, roadrunners are like penguins. How can you not like a penguin, how can you not like a roadrunner. It must be the cartoon images I grew up with, Chilly Willie and Road Runner and Wily E Coyote. The best part is I get to see them in the wild. I doubt I will ever get to Antarctica to see penguins there.