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OF THE GREATER ROADRUNNER-SNATCHING A HUMMINGBIRD WHILE IT DINES AT A BIRDFEEDER
https://www.earthtouchnews.com/in-the-field/backyard-wildlife/even-an-airborne-hummingbird-isnt-safe-from-this-hungry-roadrunner
OF THE GREATER ROADRUNNER-SNATCHING A HUMMINGBIRD WHILE IT DINES AT A BIRDFEEDER
https://www.earthtouchnews.com/in-the-field/backyard-wildlife/even-an-airborne-hummingbird-isnt-safe-from-this-hungry-roadrunner
Even an airborne hummingbird isn't safe from this hungry roadrunner
Even an airborne hummingbird isn't safe from this hungry roadrunner
BY David Moscato; MARCH 03 2017
After watching the ground cuckoos jumping up at the hummingbirds (and even catching them occasionally), Dunn decided to set out a camera to see if he could record a catch. After a few hours of waiting, he got his wish.
Without talons or a tearing beak to dispatch their struggling food, the birds opt for bashing their meal against the ground until it stops resisting. If they catch something big, like a rattlesnake, roadrunners take their time: they'll swallow the prey bit by bit, with parts of it protruding from the beak and the rest slowly digesting in their stomach.
True to their name, roadrunners stick mainly to the ground, where they can run up to 27 kmph (17mph). But even though they don't do much flying, they still have the flight-worthy tools of their airborne ancestors: powerful back legs for getting off the ground, a long tail for aerial balance, and strong wings for gaining some height and slowing their descent. In Dunn's video, you can see the roadrunner make brief but beautiful use of all of these avian gifts.
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WARNER BROS. MADE BOTH THE ROADRUNNER AND THE COYOTE FAMOUS
If you're a hummingbird, a roadrunner might not seem like something to worry about. After all, your famous aerial manoeuvrability is no match for a mostly flightless speedster way down there on the ground. Right?
Roadrunner capturing a bird
Roadrunner capturing a bird
Wrong. It turns out the roadrunner does not always stay on the road.
This quick bit of predator-on-prey action unfolded in the California backyard of Roy
Dunn, a long-time birdwatcher and wildlife photographer.
Dunn, a long-time birdwatcher and wildlife photographer.
Dunn has a fondness for photographing hummingbirds, and his high-speed cameras are perfect for capturing the swift-moving fliers. But occasionally, another hungry bird turns up near his feeders: the greater roadrunner.
After watching the ground cuckoos jumping up at the hummingbirds (and even catching them occasionally), Dunn decided to set out a camera to see if he could record a catch. After a few hours of waiting, he got his wish.
"He missed quite a few before he nailed one," Dunn said. According to Audubon, who recently featured the short clip on their website, such hummingbird-hunting behaviour has been observed before, but successful catches like this one are rarely recorded.
Roadrunners spend much of their time zipping across the harsh, dry environments of southern North America like tiny, toothless velociraptors, snatching up allmanner of creepy-crawly prey, from spiders and scorpions to centipedes and snakes. But they're not strictly carnivorous: they'll also happily eat cactus fruit (you can't be too picky in the desert!).
Roadrunner capturing a frog
Roadrunner capturing a frog
Without talons or a tearing beak to dispatch their struggling food, the birds opt for bashing their meal against the ground until it stops resisting. If they catch something big, like a rattlesnake, roadrunners take their time: they'll swallow the prey bit by bit, with parts of it protruding from the beak and the rest slowly digesting in their stomach.
True to their name, roadrunners stick mainly to the ground, where they can run up to 27 kmph (17mph). But even though they don't do much flying, they still have the flight-worthy tools of their airborne ancestors: powerful back legs for getting off the ground, a long tail for aerial balance, and strong wings for gaining some height and slowing their descent. In Dunn's video, you can see the roadrunner make brief but beautiful use of all of these avian gifts.
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WARNER BROS. MADE BOTH THE ROADRUNNER AND THE COYOTE FAMOUS
Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner
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Background information
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Wile E. Coyote (also known simply as "The Coyote") and the Road Runner are a duo of characters from the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. In the cartoons, the Coyote repeatedly attempts to catch and subsequently eat the Road Runner, a fast-running ground bird, but is never successful. Instead of his species' animal instincts, the Coyote uses absurdly complex contraptions (sometimes in the manner of Rube Goldberg) and elaborate plans to pursue his prey, resulting in his devices comically backfiring with the Coyote often getting injured in slapstick fashion. One running gag involves the Coyote trying in vain to shield himself with a little parasolagainst a great falling boulder that is about to crush him
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